21 August, 2013

Manage access requests in SharePoint 2010

‘Manage access request’ is an old mechanism which was present in MOSS2007 and with no surprise Microsoft has continued the same feature in SharePoint 2010.

Let me tell you guys that this feature is very important from so many perspectives:

§  There might be so many site collections administrators are assigned but you can specify any user or you can call as POWER USER who has the responsibility to approve the access request.

§  You can specify anybody, but make sure that he has a thorough knowledge of the functionality as it might be a threat to your site security because your site might contains some confidential documents that you don’t want to explore any third party user.

§  You are maintaining a proper channel as well as record by which to whom you are approving or whom you are giving access denied.

§  This might be a part of your governance project model also

The access request feature allows people to request access to content that they do not currently have permission to see. As a site owner, you can configure the feature to send you mail when someone requests access to a site.

Where is the location of this functionality in SharePoint 2010?

How to enable ‘manage access request’ in SharePoint 2010?

Here are the detail steps:
1.   Open the site collection on which you are working.
2.   Site actions
3.   Site settings
4.   Under ‘users and permissions’ section
5.   Site permissions
6.   Please refer the Ribbon on the top
7.   Permission tools
8.   Manage access requests
9.   Select the checkbox ‘allow request for access’ and enter the appropriate email id as per your requirements and click OK

That’s it- We are done!

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

The workbook cannot be opened error while opening excel files in SharePoint 2010

I am using SharePoint 2010 and when users click on an .xlsx document in a document library it throws the following error message:

The workbook cannot be opened because it contains the following features that are not supported by Excel in the browser:
• Data validation
• Sheet protection
Would you like to try and open this file in Excel?
Learn more about unsupported features

Number of things to check or troubleshooting steps to find out the culprit:
1.   Make sure that this file is not broken. Download a copy of this file and edit it Excel client. Remove the Consolidation, Data sources and Data validations on the file to have a test whether it fixes this issue.

2.   Check the event viewer and try to find out the exact error information as it will give you the account name where the problem lies.

3.   Check the SharePoint ULS logs where it will show the exact root cause.

4.   Check the supported and unsupported features: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff595319%28v=office.14%29.aspx

5.   If you getting this error while trying to view the excel file in browser mode then please have a look on this article:

6.   If there are unsupported features then you need to remove it before uploading that excel file in SharePoint document library.

7.   You can define in the library settings whether or not to open documents in the browser or the client application. The default is set on the server, but you can overrule that at the library level. Since Excel Services cannot open workbooks with data validation, graphic object or VBA, many Excel files with basic functionality simply won't load in the browser.

8.   Make sure that you are using 32-bit version of IE- Microsoft Recommended. - This is very important as it resolves most of the issues.

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.

Request: If you have any other resolution then please share so that it would be helpful for the entire community, Thanks again!

To open this workbook, your computer must have a version of Microsoft Excel installed and your Web browser must support opening files directly from Excel in the browser + SP2010


One of my user has opened a ticket by mentioning that he is facing some problems while opening excel files. Further probing stated that he has office 2010 already installed on the machine but still he is facing the problem.

Note: let me tell you that you might face the same problem with Office 2013 also.

User’s machine configuration:
Operating system: Windows 7 -32bit Version.
Office 2010 -32bit version.
IE 9 (internet explorer)-32 bit.

Error Message:
To open this workbook, your computer must have a version of Microsoft Excel installed and your Web browser must support opening files directly from Excel in the browser.

Very important note: before starting any troubleshooting on this, make sure that your IE version should not be 64-bit.

Why?- Internet Explorer x64 is currently not an optimal approach since many Microsoft- and thirst-party ActiveX objects still do not support 64 bits. Office 2007/2010 does not ship 64-Bit controls for SharePoint integration, such as single document upload or multiple document upload, or "Connect to Outlook", "Open in Explorer View" and many more. Considering these limitations you may want to use the 32 bit version of Internet Explorer for the future to take benefit of the SharePoint integration features.

The required component / add-ons are simply missing for IE x64 and therefore causing several features not to function, being greyed-out or generate an [error] message once requested, such as "Message from webpage: The document could not be opened for editing"

Resolution:
Repair is a great Office tool that I have used in many previous versions of Office to fix things like the Normal.dot template being changed in Word, Outlook PST and email problems, etc. If Office 2013 is running slow or having some other issue, try performing a repair and hopefully it will fix your problem. Enjoy!

Here I will share the repair process for 3 different office versions i.e. Office 2010, Office 2013 and Office 2007.

If you are using Office 2010 then please try to repair by following steps:

1.   Click on Start and then Control Panel.
2.   After the Control Panel window opens, click on Uninstall a Program.
3.   A list of all installed programs should now appear. Highlight Microsoft Office 2010, and click on Change.
4.   After the dialog box loads, choose the Repair option and click Continue.
5.   This process may take a few minutes, but after completion, you will be prompted to exit and restart any open Office programs. You may then click Close.
6.   You may be prompted to reboot your computer to apply all changes and complete setup.

If you are using Office 2013 then please try to repair by following steps:
1.   To repair Office 2013, you first have to open the Control Panel and then click on Programs and Features.
2.   Click on Office 2013 and then click on the Change button.
3.   Next, click on the Repair radio button and click Next. This will start the repair process.
4.   It’ll take some time to repair and once it has finished, you’ll see a message saying the configuration of Office 2013 is complete.
5.   You’ll then have to restart the computer in order for the repair to complete.

If you are using Office 2007 then please try to repair by following steps:

1.   To begin, go to the Start Menu > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools, and then click on Microsoft Office Diagnostics.
2.   After Microsoft Office Diagnostics opens, click Continue on the first page.
3.   By default, all of the diagnostic tests are enabled, so you may click on Run Diagnostics to proceed with diagnosis and repair.
4.   After running the diagnostics, a results page will be displayed.
5.   After clicking continue, your web browser will load with Microsoft's recommendations for the next steps to resolve any discovered issues with Microsoft Office.

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.

Request: If you have any other resolution then please share so that it would be useful for the entire community. Thanks again!

June 2013 CU + April 2013 CU + March Public Update for SharePoint 2013

June 2013 CU for SharePoint 2013
The KB articles for June CU will be available at the following locations in a couple of days:
  • KB 2817346 - SharePoint Foundation 2013 June 2013 CU
  • KB 2817414 - SharePoint Server 2013 June 2013 CU
  • KB 2817415 - SharePoint Server 2013 with Project Server June 2013 CU
  • KB 2817350 - Office Web Apps Server 2013 June 2013 CU
The Full Server Packages for June 2013 CU are available through the following links:
April 2013 CU for SharePoint 2013
March Public Update for SharePoint 2013
Install future cumulative updates for SharePoint 2013 it will be mandatory to first install the March public update.
  • KB 2768000 - SharePoint Foundation 2013
  • KB 2767999 - SharePoint Server 2013
  • KB 2768001 - Project Server 2013
The Full Server Packages for March 2013 PU are available through the following links:
After installing the fixes you need to run the SharePoint 2013 Products Configuration Wizard on each machine in the farm.

August 2013 CU for SharePoint 2013

The product group released the August 2013 Cumulative Update for the SharePoint 2013 product family.

The KB articles for August CU will be available at the following locations in a couple of days:
  • KB 2817517 - SharePoint Foundation 2013 August 2013 CU
  • KB 2817616 - SharePoint Server 2013 August 2013 CU
  • KB 2817615 - SharePoint Server 2013 with Project Server August 2013 CU
  • KB 2817521 - Office Web Apps Server 2013 August 2013 CU
The Full Server Packages for August 2013 CU are available through the following links:
After installing the fixes you need to run the SharePoint 2013 Products Configuration Wizard on each machine in the farm.