You cannot switch the user account in SharePoint Designer 2013

SharePoint Designer is a powerful application that enables the rapid creation, editing and deployment of content on the SharePoint platform.

Microsoft has already published a document on this issue and here is the KB article for this:

Microsoft KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2738178

Additional references:

Please refer the following error messages:

1.      Indexer process doesn’t free up old memory after repartitioning

2.      New-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexComponent checks the existence of RootDirectory in the wrong server

3.      PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer Help doesn’t open as expected

4.      PowerPoint intent isn’t shown

5.      Repair operations on SharePoint Standalone can delete your content database

6.      WSS Sync failed to run in because of a lack of profile database permission

7.      Cannot process argument because the value of argument"implementingType" is null. Change the value of argument "implementingType" to a non-null value.

8.      "Error occurred in deployment step 'Add Solution': Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer ..."

9.      Unable to retrieve topology component health states. This may be because the admin component is not up and running.

If you are facing any error messages which are listed above then please refer the following Microsoft article for the details workaround information:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/sharepoint-server-2013-known-issues-HA102919021.aspx

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. Thank you.

SharePoint Designer permission requirements

SharePoint Designer is a powerful application that enables the rapid creation, editing and deployment of content on the SharePoint platform. As such, certain mandatory permission levels are required.

Detail Information:

As outlined in the article at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/managing-sharepoint-designer-2010-HA101838275.aspx

After enabling SharePoint Designer at the web application level and site collection level, the next steps are to select the users that will be enabled to access, create, and modify SharePoint content through SharePoint Designer.

SharePoint Designer is designed to request and use SharePoint permissions that grant the rights of managing & designing at the SharePoint site level it is not design to use the permission at a smaller granularity level such as list item level permissions..

Reference Documents:

1.      http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262939.aspx

2.      http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721640.aspx

Conclusion:

To be able to use SharePoint Designer and modify SharePoint content, an user needs to be a member of one of the following groups at the site collection level:

1.      Site Collection Administrators group

2.      The Designers group

3.      Owners group

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. Thank you.

"List from Spreadsheet" using SharePoint Designer 2010 throws "An unexpected error has occurred"

We are all aware about ‘How to import a spreadsheet’ from normal GUI functionality. This time I was playing the same functionality with SharePoint Designer 2010 and faced some challenges. I would like to share the exact steps as how we can reproduce the same error and workaround for the same.

Problem Description: If you try to import a spreadsheet from within SharePoint Designer 2010 to create a list in SharePoint 2010 you get an error

"An unexpected error has occurred."

Steps To Reproduce:

1.     Browse to a SharePoint site 

2.     From the Site Settings menu click on "Edit In SharePoint Designer" 

3.     Within SharePoint Designer, choose left menu "Lists and Items" 

4.     From the Ribbon menu click "List from Spreadsheet" 

5.     SharePoint Designer will launch the SharePoint site within a browser 

6.     Add a title on the list and choose File then click Import 

7.     You will get error message "An unexpected error has occurred" 

Workaround:

The URL when you try to load the page from SharePoint Designer will look something like the following and it will not work:

http://server/_layouts/new.aspx?ListTemplate=SpreadsheetImport  

Append to the URL on the page that is being called from SharePoint Designer with the following and reload the page.

&ListBaseType=0&DisplayName=Spreadsheet+Import  

Example:

http://server/_layouts/new.aspx?ListTemplate=SpreadsheetImport&ListBaseType=0&DisplayName=Spreadsheet+Import

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues J J

Error: Spdesign.exe has been denied access to or there is no server on port 443 at .

Today one of my client reported with an issue while browseing some of the SharePoint sites using designer. Accessing sites using SharePoint gives the below error messages. 

Error: Spdesign.exe has been denied access to

 

Clicking Ok produces another error message as below.

Error: There is no server on port 443 at . You have selected the Connect using SSL Option. This connections problem may indicate that the server does not support Secure Socket Layer (SSL) communications, or that it uses SSL communications on a different port number.

 

I was clue less for the issue at the start since the sites were browseable using https//….. Protocol. So I started the troubleshooting based on the troubleshooting related to NIC card, VPN connection suspicion, SSL port disability (prompting for making calls server at 443 ports) from windows firewall. 

Tried to compare the SPD versions on the different machine where it was working not working and didn’t found any issue.

Tried to clear SPD Cache clearance by using the following steps:

1. Close SharePoint Designer.

2. Open My Computer.

3. Go to %System Drive%\Documents and Settings\%user%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\WebSiteCache. 

4. Delete all folders and files there.

5. Open the site using SPD and we still has the issue. 

On further checking for proxy used by SharePoint designer I noticed that actual issue was related to the wrong proxy usage with Designer.

The proxy was not configuring to make connection to the server using Secure Socket Layer at port 443. By changing the proxy settings in Designer we were able to access all of the sites using designer.

Steps to change Proxy using Designer. 

1. Open SharePoint Designer. 

2. Go to tools -> Application Options.

3.On General tab choose to click Proxy Settings. And change the proxy with is configured to use the SSL over http protocol. 

By changing the proxy for the client, we were able to open the sites from the SharePoint Designer. 

Note: This Proxy settings can also be configured via IE and you may be prompted to provide credentials to open the site for the first time in Designer. 

If you have any issue or query please do let me know, I would be more happy to help you answer.

Saving a site as a template

You can save a site as a template at any time using the template option (Save site as template) on the Site Settings page in SharePoint. SharePoint Designer 2010 make it easy by providing a Save as Template option in the ribbon, which takes you to this page in SharePoint. Once you save the template, a solution file is created and stored in the Solution Gallery where you can download or activate the solution.

To save your site as a template using SharePoint Designer 2010, perform the following steps:

1. Open your site in SharePoint Designer 2010.

2. On the Site tab, in the Manage group, click Save as Template

 3.This takes you to the Save as Template page in SharePoint.

4. Specify a name to use for the template file in the File name field.

5. Specify a name and description for the template in the Template name and Template description fields.

6. To include the content of the site in the site template, check the Include Content box.

Note: Including the content of the site can increase the size of the template significantly. Keep in mind that the default size limit for a site template is 50 MB but may be less in your organization.

7. Click OK to save the template.

8. If all of the components on the site are valid, the template is built, and you see a message that says Operation Completed Successfully.

9. To download or activate the solution from the solution gallery, click the user solution gallery link and follow the steps in the procedure below.

10. Or, to return to your site, click OK.

 

Activating the site template in the solution gallery

Once you’ve saved your site as a template, a solution file (.wsp) is created and stored in the Solution Gallery for the site collection. From here, you can download or activate the solution.

To activate your site template, perform the following steps:

1. Browse to the top level site of your site collection in SharePoint.

2. Click Site Actions and choose Site Settings.

3. Under Galleries, click Solutions.

4. To activate your solution, click the pull-down menu beside your solution, and choose Activate

5. On the activate solution confirmation screen, click Activate.

Your solution now has an activated status in the Solution Gallery.

6. To download the solution, just click its name in the Solution Gallery.

7. In the File Download dialog box, click Save, and browse to the location where you want to save the solution.

What gets saved in a template

When you save your SharePoint site as a template, you’re saving the overall framework of the site. Most of the objects in a site are included and supported by the template.

There are a number of objects and features not supported however.

Supported

Lists

Libraries

External Lists

Data source connections

List views and data views

Custom forms

Workflows

Content Types

Custom Actions

Navigation

Site pages

Master pages

Modules

Web Templates

Not Supported

Customized permissions

Running workflow instances

List item version history

Workflow tasks associated with running workflows

People/group field values

Taxonomy field values

Publishing pages and publishing sites

My Sites