08 April, 2014

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This article is based on usage of Performance Point services with SharePoint 2013. Basically I am trying to generate an excel report with the help of performance point service.

Entities:
1.   SharePoint 2013
2.   Performancepoint Services
3.   Excel Services

How to reproduce the issue / error?

Here are the details:-
1.   Open the dashboard designer
2.   If you have already created the data connection then it’s good, if not then right click on the data connection and create a new.
3.   Once that done then you will get that external data i.e. SP list, SQL data etc inside the dashboard.
4.   Right click on data source ->select New -> Report
5.   Select excel services
6.   Click OK
7.   Once you will see the excel file selected in the “excel workbook” location then click on ‘View’

That’s it – You will get the error as mentioned below-

Error message:
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How to fix this issue?

Here is the resolution:
1.   Open the Central administration
2.   Application management
3.   Manage web applications
4.   Select the web application where your site resides underneath
5.   Manage service connections
6.   Select the Excel Services Application
7.   Click OK

That’s it – You are done! Your issue will be resolved J

In case of 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.

Note: If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Product Applies to:
1.   SharePoint 2013
2.   SharePoint 2010
3.   SharePoint Foundation 2010
4.   SharePoint Foundation 2013

06 April, 2014

The server was unable to save the form at this time. Please try again - SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 is always full of mysteries as it’s a starting time and most of the firms are doing the migration of their SharePoint 2010 environment to SP2013 platform. So it’s quite obvious it will take some time to make your farm stable!

Note:
If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.

Problem description:
We have recently done the migration from SP2010 -> SP2013 in our development environment and given access to limited number of high profile users and developers for the testing. While doing the testing, one of the developers has reported an incident mentioning he is facing some error while editing the list item. Further exploration reveals that we can’t add a new item also.

So bottom line, this error comes up while: Adding a new item in a list or at the time of editing the item

Error Message:
The server was unable to save the form at this time. Please try again.



Troubleshooting done:
1.   Tried creating different list with some different template / type but same issue.
2.   Checked the list in SharePoint Designer 2013 but didn’t find anything relevant.
3.   Checked the site settings for any customized content type but it was using default settings
4.   Checked the event viewer for any critical errors but didn’t not find anything
5.   Checked the services console, did some try & error funda but that did the trick. Later I did some research on my “trial and error method” and understood the complete process via Microsoft articles (reference article –bottom of this page)

Resolution:
1.   Go to your SharePoint Server
2.   Start
3.   Run
4.   Type – services.msc
5.   It will open the services console
6.   Search for this service - SharePoint Search Host Controller
7.   Restart it.

It fixed the issue and I was able to create new items as well as edit the existing items too.

Happy SharePoint once again!

Few suggestions if the above solution doesn’t work:-
1)   IISRESET on SharePoint Servers
2)   Restart all the SharePoint Servers
3)   Enable anonymous authentication for the website in IIS.

I hope the above information works for you also! But 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, Thank you.


Product applies to:
a)   SharePoint 2013
b)   SharePoint Foundation 2013

Error: "The web server process that was being debugged has been terminated by Internet Information Services (IIS)

Scenario : You are debugging the code in Visual studio. You will be setting breakpoints and then you will be iterating through each line of the code for checking values for each variables, logic's etc in debug mode.

But after 1 or 2 mines passed, you might receive the below error and it will terminate your debugging process .


Error Message: The web server process that was being debugged has been terminated by IIS. this can be avoided by configuring application pool setting in IIS. see help for further details.

Reason for this Interruption: 
In IIS ,there is a settings called "ping period"  and "the maximum response time" which are set to 30 & 90 seconds respectively for each app pools. IIS  performs health monitoring pings against each of its worker processes to ensure they are still responding. If IIS does not receive a response from the worker process to one of these pings within a given timeframe, IIS forcefully terminates the worker process.When debugging in Visual Studio, the worker process is stopped while Visual Studio is paused on a breakpoint. Therefore, the worker process has no way to respond to a health monitoring ping after that given time frame. Therefore, the worker process gets terminated.

Resolution:
In IIS ,You can either set "Ping Enabled" to "false" or you can increase the "Ping Period" & "Ping Maximum response time" to stop getting this error.
Below are the steps to achieve this.
1.Go to Run->inetmgr. It will open IIS Manager
2.Go to the "Application Pools" and select your site's app pool.
3.In the right pane click Advanced Settings.
4.Under "Process Model" , Set "Ping Enabled" to "false" or  increase the "Ping Period" & "Ping Maximum response time".



Note: This is recommended only in development environment.

This will allow you to debug your code without any interruption.

Product applies to:
- SharePoint 2013
- SharePoint 2013

05 April, 2014

Access denied by Business Data Connectivity - BCS - Resolved

Create an External Content type based on backend SQL Server Database and create an External list based on it.

Open the Site in SharePoint Designer 2010: http://portal.contoso.com


Provide username and password in the promotion for open the site


Opening the site http://portal.contoso.com by communicating with the Web service


Retrieving External Content type Report



Create new external content type: Define General Properties for External Content type


Content type name: Contact; Name Space: http://portal.contoso.com; Office Item Type: Contact; Enable offline Sync to External list 

External System: Click here to discover external data sources and define operations 

Add Connection 

Managing Connections to external data sources and the operations for this external content type

External Data Source Type Selection: SQL Server -> Open the SQL Server Connection


SQL Server Connection: Populate the Database Server and Database name in the box


 Navigate to the appropriate database (AdventureWorks) and scroll through the required table (Contact)  

Table: Verify the available operations for that table

Operations for External content type means action that can be performed on the data associated with the external system -> Click on Create all Operations


Specify the parameters for the Operation


Example: Get the “Last Name” parameter-> Office property: Last Name; Check the Show in Picker box.


Filter Parameter Configuration


Add Filter Parameter: Add a Limit filter to the Query Item List Operation


Add Filter Type: Limit (Strongly Recommended to add a filter of type ‘Limit’ for this operation type)  



Filter Filed: None; Default value given as “100” for the limit filter type

Save the Content type to the Business Data Connectivity Metadata Store


Create an External List for the External Content type


External List : Business Contacts ; System Instance : AdventureWorks

External List: Business Contacts Created


Set Business Connectivity Store Permissions

List and Libraries -> External List-> Business Contacts -> Open Preview in Browser


Access is being denied by Business Data Connectivity Service (Reason: There is no permission for viewing this list)


Set the permission: Open CA->App mgmt. ->Manage Service Applications-> Business Data Connectivity Service->Manage->Set Metadata Store Permissions 


 Add Contoso\Administrator and feed all the (Edit, Execute, Selectable in Clients, Set Permissions) permission to the user.

Propagate permissions to all BDC Models, External Systems and External Content types in the BDC Metadata Store.


Work with External Content type in the Browser: Navigate to the http://portal.contoso.com


List will display with the no permission error now


Edit Item: Edit any of the lists and include any data in the list.


Example: Data Included in one of the List


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.

Product Applies To:
- SharePoint 2010
- SharePoint 2013

04 April, 2014

The site template requires that the Feature be installed in the farm


I was facing one issue while creating a new site from site template in our customer environment. This site was created in our local environment and I saved it as a template.

Below is the screenshot for the error what customer are facing.

After investigating with this feature id, I found that, there is a hidden feature named “WACustomReports” at site collection label, that need to be deactivated before saving the site as template.

Error Message: The site template requires that the Feature be installed in the farm or site collection. Troubleshoot issues with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.

Resolution is very simple:
Please activate this feature "Web Analytics Customize Reports functionality" on the root site where you are trying to create the site based on this template. Here is the exact name - WACustomReports

OR Here is the command to activate that feature (Any feature which is missing): Enable-SPFEATURE WACustomReports –URL http://sitecollectionURL

But here is the END USER reply that I received from the end user:
“In our environment, we don’t have any access. We are only sharing the templates with instructions. Client is having only Site Collection Admin rights, not central admin rights. That’s why I deactivated this HIDDEN feature from our dev environment. Took a backup and will share with customer today.”

So bottom line: No direct access to do these things which has suggested above.

So what’s the next action plan?

Here is the resolution for this-

- Save the wsp to your desktop

- Renamed it to the .CAB file

- Extract the contents

- You will see four folders underneath ( adminListInstances, adminModules, adminPropertyBags and adminWebTemplate)

- Go for adminWebTemplate

- Go inside the "admin" folder

- You will see "ONET.XML"

- Edit with notepad

- Control F and search for WACustomReports (please refer the following screenshot) to get more clarity
- remove the lines which are for the above feature

- Save the notepad.

- Repackage the files again and save as .WSP

How to repackage it? Here are the steps:
1.   Rename WSP file to CAB and extract all the files
2.   Modify the necessary files
3.   Rebuild the correct directory structure for the solution
4.   Copy the files into that directory structure (in the right place)
5.   Create a DDF file indicating name and location of all files to be in WSP file
6.   Run MakeCab using created DDF file to create cab, and then rename cab to WSP

Reference of MakeCab:

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.

If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.