Site Templates in SharePoint 2010

Hello Guys-Hope all are doing well J

Today’s article is not based on troubleshooting but specifically on informative purpose. We all know what the importance of site template is and how we can use it while creating any site collection or a subsite.

Just a brief about site template in SharePoint 2007:

If you guys wanna know about the number of templates available in SP2007 then please refer the following link as Microsoft has already done a fabulous job by publishing this incredible article: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/default-site-templates-HA010174491.aspx

Let’s view some details about templates which are available in SharePoint 2010:

Really hats off to Microsoft product team as they have done tremendous job by making a drastic enhancement in this new version i.e. SP2010, if you wanna take a preview of the number of available site templates in SharePoint 2010 then please refer the following article: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/a-preview-of-the-sharepoint-server-2010-site-templates-HA101907564.aspx

How can we forget fabulous 40/Fab40/fantastic40 templates?

If you wanna download the 40 application templates for SharePoint 2007 then please use the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=12088

Can we get same set of templates in SharePoint 2010?

Important note about the application templates and SharePoint 2010 Products

Microsoft is not releasing new versions of these templates for SharePoint 2010 Products. Also, .stp files are deprecated and can't be used to create new sites when you upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010 or SharePoint Foundation 2010.

SharePoint 2010 Products: Upgrade and the Fabulous 40 Application Templates.

But some templates are still available for download and you can use the following links for downloading:

http://sp2010teamplates.codeplex.com/

http://www.techsolutions.net/SharePointSolutions.aspx

Before concluding this article, I would like to say thanks to Sharee’s Blog for sharing this valuable article: SharePoint 2010 Template Codes

Please let me know in case of any queries/questions so that we can discuss the same and point out the correct resolution. Thank you.

There has been an error while processing the form. An error occurred accessing a data source.

Come back to share one more issue with all of you in which I have spend almost two days to do a extensive debugging to find out the root cause. This issue is based on browser enabled InfoPath form which was throwing an error while loading it. Let me confirmed you one thing that this form is not at all customized one and all components has been designed by using default functionality. Let me brief the details:

Issue: Browser enabled InfoPath form suddenly stopped working while loading and throwing the exception as mentioned below:

Error message: There has been an error while processing the form. An error occurred accessing a data source.

Click Continue to resume filling out the form. You may want to check your form data for errors. Click Start Over to load a new copy of the form.

Troubleshooting done:

The above error seems to be quite often and it hints that there is some problem with the ‘Data Source/Connection’. If the form is showing the error while loading i.e. form never loads but shows a message to ‘continue or start over’, then there is some problem with the data source which is set up to ‘Automatically retrieve data when form is opened’.

·         Downloaded the actual form to my desktop and tried republishing it to my personal site

·         Form has been successfully published but same error persists.

·         If we removed all the data connections from the library then the form loads fine without any issues

·         If we tried setting up the data connections one by one then also we are facing the same error message.

·         Tried creating the data connection by using XML method also but faced the same error message.

·         Tried creating the data connection by using web service but same problems persist.

Gathered SP logs from front ends to check for any detailed exceptions

Found this:

The following query failed: ID (User: SPDomain\amol ghuge, Form Name: Assessment, IP: , Request: https://sharepoint2007/_layouts/FormServer.aspx?XsnLocation=sharepoint2007/Forms/template.xsn&SaveLocation=sharepoint2007&Source=sharepoint2007/Forms/AllItems.aspx&DefaultItemOpen=1, Form ID: urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:Assessment:-myXSD-2010-11-22T16-18-42, Type: DataAdapterException, Exception Message: The data connection ID returned more than the currently configured maximum of 1500 KB of data, and the connection attempt was stopped.  To i...  1aab5aab-5f07-4089-a693-096a5a4697a2

07/12/2012 14:13:29.60*               w3wp.exe (0x12BC)                       0x30E0  Forms Server                     Forms Services Runtime - Data C   82fy       Warning               ...increase the amount of data that can be returned in a data query, change this setting in the InfoPath Forms Services configuration page in SharePoint Central Administration.)  1aab5aab-5f07-4089-a693-096a5a4697a2

As per the sharepoint logs, it clearly suggest that we have to make the changes in the InfoPath configuration settings which is a present in application management (Central Administration)

Resolution:

§  Central Administration

§  Application management

§  Configure InfoPath form services

§  Data Connection Response Size: By default is 1500 kilobytes

§  Increased this value to 1550 and then the form has been successfully loaded without any error message.

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, Thank you. 

Export to spreadsheet is missing in survey list-SharePoint 2010

You can use surveys to ask people what they think about issues, how to improve your processes, and many other topics. You can collect the results by using several different types of questions, such as multiple choice, fill-in fields, and even ratings.

As we use Microsoft excel on quite regular basis and very used to with it, we need to see every application in the excel and makes every desperate effort to view it but now the issue is while exporting survey data to excel, we need that option i.e. ‘EXPORT TO SPREADSHEET’ and this seems to be missing.

How to troubleshoot this issue?

I will brief here number of steps by which you can troubleshoot the issue and let me know me know in case of any queries/questions.

·         You should have office application (Office 2010/Office 2007) should be installed on your client machine.

·         Make sure that 'SharePoint Server Enterprise Site Collection features' should be activated at the site collection level.

·         Are you logged in as site collection admin or site owner? What are your permissions on the site? Also, try opening IE in "Run as administrator" mode and see if that makes a difference.

·         Make sure that you have to check the option (i.e. export to spreadsheet) on a actual survey list and not on a web part

·         make sure that on the Survey page, the view on right-hand corner is set to "Overview"

·         On the actual survey list-make sure the proper view is selected inside the web part options: How to check this:

§  Open the survey list in which you are facing the issue

§  Edit page

§  Modify shared web part

§  Under the selected view option

§  Select 'current view' and click on apply

·         Try saving the survey list as a template and create a new one based on the same

·         try to create a access view/standard view by using the following steps:

§  Go to any list and click on create view

§  Copy that URL

§  Go back to the survey list now

§  Settings

§  List settings

§  Copy the url from the browser (i.e. List=)

§  Paste it in the create view (first step)

§  You will get the create view page

Please let me know in case of any further queries. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues. Thank you.

Documents in this folder are not available. This folder may have been moved or deleted, or network problems may be preventing a connection to the server.

Guys,

Today I am going to share the issue that we had resolved yesterday and I hope the following troubleshooting steps will help you to resolve the same problem J

Issue:

While trying to open the document library in explorer view or using “Open with Windows Explorer” option and was getting following error

Documents in this folder are not available. This folder may have been moved or deleted, or network problems may be preventing a connection to the server.

Troubleshooting:

·         Confirmed that it’s a machine specific issue by login user to other workstation.

·         On user workstation, checked and found that the web Client service was not running.

·         From services.msc, changed service startup type to Automatic and started the service.

·         Performed IE Reset.

·         Run Office diagnostics.

·         Rebooted the workstation after every step to verify.

Resolution:

·         Backed up the registry folder "Software".

·         Deleted a folder “Software” under “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT -> Software -> Microsoft -> MasterAggregatorForIPP -> OleDbHandlers”

·         Run Office Repair

·         Restarted workstation.

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

Edit in datasheet is missing in SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 is simply fabulous J this version has already comes up with lot of new enhancements and easy to use functionality.

Requirements: Let’s suppose the site collection administrator has decided that he doesn’t want his team members to see the option of ‘edit in datasheet’ for a specific library. If I want to reframe this information in other terms then it would be like this-Site collection administrator wants to hide the ‘edit in datasheet’ option for a document library so that nobody can open it in datasheet view/ nobody can download the data by means of datasheet view.

In sharepoint 2007, it was possible by using some customized coding but in SharePoint 2010, it an out of box functionality and can be easily achieved.

Resolution: Please refer the following steps and your issue will be resolved:

·         Open the document in which you are facing the problem

·         Settings

·         Document library settings

·         Advanced settings

·         Make this option-“Allow items in this document library to be edited using the datasheet?”- Yes

·         Click OK

That’s it and you are done J

Note: it requires full control permissions for the document library or at the site level so that you can see the settings option.

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

Thank you.

Rating mechanism on blog site SharePoint 2010

I have created one blog site and tried implementing the rating mechanism and successfully used the rating mechanism on blog site template.

Please refer the following steps that i have implemented and let me know in case of any queries. Thank you.

·         On a blog site, under Blog Tools, click Manage Posts.

·         Under List Tools, click List, and then click List Settings in the Settings group.

·         Under General, click Rating settings.

·         Under Allow items in this list to be rated, click Yes, and then click OK.

·         In the top breadcrumb or left navigation, click Posts to return to your list of posts.

·         In the Ribbon, click the List or Library tab, and then click Create View.

·         Click Standard View. If Create View is disabled, you may not have the necessary permissions to create a personal or public view.

·         Click Standard View.

·         In the View Name box, type the name for your view, such as Ratings. Leave the Make this default view check box cleared.

·         In the Audience section, under View Audience, select Create a Personal view or Create a Public view. If Create a Public View is disabled, you may not have the necessary permissions to create a public view for this list or library.

·         In the Columns section, select only the columns that you want in the view and clear the columns that you do not want. To display just the post name and the rating, for example, select the Title and Rating (0-5) columns. You can add other columns you want, such as # of Comments.

·         Next to the selected columns, from the drop-down lists, select the order of the columns in the view.

·         In the Sorting section, select Created, and then click Show items in descending order. This setting will display the most recent posts first in the list, but you customize this setting, such as sorting by the highest rated posts.

·         Under Tabular View, clear the Allow individual item checkboxes checkbox.

·         Under Item Limit, type how many posts you want to display. For example, you might only want to display 5-10 posts if you have several other items to display on your blog page.

·         If you don’t want people to browse through pages of older posts from within this Web Part, click Limit the total number of items returned. This setting prevents the browsing arrows from displaying underneath the rated posts.

·         Click OK to create the view, and then click your blog name in the navigation to return to the blog home page.

·         Click Site Actions, and then click Edit Page.

·         Do one of the following:

Click Add a Web Part in the zone you want to place it.

Click on the page where you want to insert the ratings Web Part. For example, you might want to put it to the right of your posts. In the ribbon, click the Insert tab, and then click Web Part.

·         Under Categories, click Lists and Libraries, under Web Parts, click Posts, and then click Add. The new Web Part appears on the page.

·         To switch to the Ratings view you created, click the down arrow, and then click Edit Web Part. The configuration tool pane appears.

·         Under Selected View, click the ratings view you just created.

·         Under Appearance, type a name for the Web Part, such as Rate recent posts.

·         Make any other changes you want, and click OK.

Lync Server 2010 with supported IP Phones.

Lync Server 2010 with supported IP Phones.

Guys, 

Lync Server 2010 is well known about Conferencing features and it will support many types of IP phones.

Here I will walk through various supported IP Phones.

In Lync Server 2010, a device may refer to any unified communication (UC) device, including headsets and webcams, but the device that is discussed here is the IP phone because it is a managed device.

Phones running Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition allow users to interact with the Lync Server 2010 communication and collaboration features.

Lync Server 2010 supports three types of IP phones:

• Desk phones.These phones are designed to be used by employees at their desk. Desk phones are also

known as information worker or knowledge worker phones.

• Common area phones.These phones are designed to be used in shared areas,such as lobbies, kitchens,

factory floors, and shared workspaces, and can be customized to provide different sets of

Lync Server2010 features.

• Conferencing phones.These phones are designed to be used in meeting rooms.

Desk Phones:

Lync Server 2010 provides options for both IP desk phones and Universal Serial Bus (USB) phones. IP phones provide a broader set of UC features and do not need to be connected to a computer that is running Lync 2010 to provide communication and collaboration features. USB phones require this connection as they are simply an extension of a local Lync 2010 client. IP phones will not allow users to log on unless the users are configured for Enterprise Voice. USB phones allow all users to log on regardless of their configuration. USB phones work for Lync 2010 calls by using the Internet, without requiring Enterprise Voice or a connection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN IP desk phones:

• Aastra 6725ip (new)

• Polycom CX500 (new)

• Polycom CX600 (new)

• Polycom CX700 (OCS 2007 R2 device (with upgrade))

• LG/Nortel 8540 (OCS 2007 R2 device (with upgrade))

Lync Server 2010 also introduces support the following USB desk phones:E ONLY. STUDENT USE PROHIBITED

• Polycom CX100

• Polycom CX200

• Polycom CX300 (new)

• Plantronics Calisto 420

• Plantronics Calisto 540

Common Area Phones

The supported common area phones are:

• Aastra 6721ip (new)

• Polycom CX500 (new)

Because all of the common area phones are IP phones, they do not need to be connected to a computer

to provide Lync Server 2010 UC functionality.

What Is a Hot-Desk Phone?

A hot-desk phone is a common area phone that allows users to log on to their own user accounts. The

features, policies, and settings associated with their user account will apply for as long as the user is

logged on. When the user logs out, the phone provides basic common area phone usage.

Conferencing Phones:

Conference room devices transmit high-quality audio, and those with video capabilities track the person

who is currently speaking. The supported conferencing devices are:

• Polycom CX5000 (audio/video)

• Polycom CX3000 (audio)

Thank you.

Content organizer in SharePoint 2010

Content organizer is basically a routing functionality which is used to route documents to appropriate folders depending upon the predefined set of rules. This functionality was present in SharePoint 2007 also; if I want to be specific in terms of this functionality then it was present in ‘Record Center Template’. Microsoft Product team enhances this functionality in SharePoint 2010.

How to use this functionality on your SharePoint site?

Note: In SharePoint 2010, you can use this functionality in any site template, unlike record center in SP2007.

Here are the detailed steps:

·         Open the sharepoint site

·         Site actions

·         Site settings

·         Site actions-manage site features

·         Activate this feature ‘content organizer’

·         By this way, the feature/ we can call it as functionality will be successfully activated on your site.

IMP Point:

As soon as the above mentioned feature will be activated then 3 changes will be added to your site.

·         Open the SharePoint site

·         Site actions

·         Site settings

·         Site administration

1.   Content Organizer settings

2.   Content Organizer Rules

·         Addition of new document library i.e. ‘DROP OFF LIBRARY’

Note: The Content Organizer will only work on content types that are or derive from the Document content type.

How I have tested this functionality?

1.   Created two document libraries named as Sales and Departments

2.   Created two content types based on this document libraries named as Departments_Rule1 and Sales_Rule1

3.   Add these two content types in the document libraries which are created above.

Let’s go back to the site settings page and set content organizer rules. This is an important step that will route your documents to the mentioned location that you will set, otherwise it will route the documents to ‘drop off library’ if the conditions does not match.

Note: You can set any condition depending on the column parameters.

That’s it, now you can test it and check the results J

In case of any queries/questions then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues J

Thank you.