SharePoint Stuff

A collection of helpful tips and resources on maximising the value from a SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services Implementation.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Contributors cannot edit News Stories

While a user belonging to the Contributor group can edit content anywhere on the SharePoint Portal - they cannot edit news stories. They can add new news stories but can't go back and edit them.

This is because, to edit News Stories, you need "Manage Area" permissions enabled for the particular user. By default only the Web Designer and above can do this.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

SharePoint v3 now in 2007?

According to an article on MSNBC, it seems the new Office suite will not ship till early 2007.

"Microsoft also announced a range of Office 2007-related server products, including an updated SharePoint Server, a projects server and a server to create forms hosted on the Internet that the company says will make it easier for users to collaborate and share documents and data."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11385373/from/RS.4/

Guess we have to wait a bit longer.

Search SharePoint from Word 2003

You can search your corporate intranet (or SharePoint portal) from within Word as part of the Research functionality. To enable this

1. Open Word - click Ctrl + F1 to view the Active Pane if not visible and go to the Research Section
2. Click "Research Options" at the bottom of the pane.
3. Click "Add Services"
4. Enter the address as "http://MyPortalServer/_vti_bin/search.asmx
5. Save

Now the SharePoint Portal site will be an option when you search for keywords or phrases.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Show PDF Icon in Listings

To show the PDF (or any other icon) in SharePoint
1. Create a 16x16 icon file, call it pdf16.gif and upload it to the /60/TEMPLATE/IMAGES folder
2. Then open /60/TEMPLATE/XML/DOCICON.XML and in the "By Extension" section add the following line
< key="pdf" value="pdf16.gif">

Restart IIS and you're done.

Monday, February 27, 2006

This form is not available for this list.

SharePoint lets you create a lookup field in a custom list or document library that reads values off an existing list. If you then create a view with a grouping on the lookup field, then you will get the "This form is not available for this list" error message, if any value in the list is deleted. It does not matter if the value you are linking to still exists, all links via the group by will return the same message.

To work around it, include the lookup field in your view. The field will then appear twice, when expanded, in the grouping as well as in each item, however the links from the grouping will work. However, if you remove the field again, the error will reappear.

Go figure.

File Not Found - WSS Sites and Workspaces

A "File Not Found" error is returned when you try and access an existing Workspace or Sub Site if the original template has been removed or its reference removed from the XML folder.

For example, if you create an Event Workspace based on the Multipage Meeting Workspace template. You then proceed to customise the event workspace and finally save it as a new template - calling it "My Multi Page Event Workspace Template". If you now remove (as in physically delete) the following line

< configuration id="4" title="Multipage Meeting Workspace" description="All the basics to plan, organize and track your meeting with multiple pages. This Meeting Workspace contains the following lists: Objectives, Attendees and Agenda in addition to two blank pages for you to customize based on your requirements." hidden="FALSE" imageurl="/_layouts/images/mwsprev.png" >< /configuration >

from the WEBTEMP.XML file, then your custom template will no longer work. Existing workspaces based on the template will fail and all attempts to create a new workspace based on this template will return an error message.

If you wish to not have the default Multipage Meeting Workspace appear in any listing - change the Hidden attribute to "TRUE" and restart IIS.

This problem also occurs for WSS templates that have been created based on a copy of the STS folder - and the copy is either deleted or the related WEBTEMPxxx.XML file is removed.

Can't view Custom Templates in WSS

Only Administrators for a site can use custom templates to create new lists or workspaces. Even if you create a custom group and grant them all permissions they will not be able to use an custom template.

According to Microsoft documentation if you give any user group the right to "Create Subsites - Create subsites such as team sites, Meeting Workspace, Document Workspace sites" they should be able to create a site. However they can only create a site based on existing default template - not any custom ones you might have deployed.

To grant users the ability to use a custom template,
1. Log in as Administrator to the WSS site
2. Go to "Site Settings" > "Go to Site Administration" > "Manage Site Template Gallery"
3. Click "Modify Settings and Columns" in the left nav
4. Click "Change Permissions for this Gallery"
Here you will find that the list has unique permissions and no one except Administrator have permissions to do anything. You can choose to either "Inherit Permissions from the parent Web Site" or manually add users who you wish to be able to create lists, sites, workspaces based on custom templates.

To allow anyone other than an Administrator to create and save a template, grant that user the ability to Insert Items in the list.

This is because the template gallery is nothing more than a glorified Custom List with unique permissions. So merely granting them permission via Site Settings is not enough, since permissiosn are not inherited in this list.

View Stats Anywhere

If you have enabled "Usage Analysis Processing" in SharePoint Central Administration, there is a hidden URL that lets you view the stats for any page/section/area of the Portal (and WSS). Just navigate to the area where you wish to view stats and add
"/_layouts/1033/usagedetails.aspx"
to the URL. Note the string above replaces the filename so if you are in the "News" home page
http://myportalsite/news/default.aspx
will become
http://myportalsite/news/_layouts/1033/usagedetails.aspx

If you use
"/_layouts/1033/usage.aspx"
instead it will show a summary including Total Hits, Number of Users etc.