Linkedin on Matt Thornton

Configuring certificates and trust in SharePoint 2010 for accessing Exchange Web Services

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:38:22 +0000

Exchange is built on web services and as I posted about a while about accessing EWS from SharePoint can be pretty neat. There is a managed API to make your life even easier. However, one issue you may come across is actually getting SharePoint and Exchange to talk nicely to each other. This will walk you through some of the steps required to get things going.

SharePoint workflow + list item edit + value cannot be null

Thu, 26 May 2011 19:27:37 +0000

You may encounter a random error when using a custom Visual Studio SharePoint 2010 workflow. Everything appears OK, but when you go to edit the item that the workflow is running on, the EditForm fails to load and you see an error like:

`Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: s

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: s]
System.IO.StringReader..ctor(String s) +10151478
System.Xml.XmlDocument.LoadXml(String xml) +51
Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Internal.WorkflowUtilities.FlattenXmlToHashtable(String strXml) +90
...
`

SharePoint + Visual Studio + Get Current User

Wed, 04 May 2011 17:34:08 +0000

A frequently asked question in the MSDN forums is “how you can get access to the user who is interacting with your workflow?”. For example, the user modifying a task. The workflow is likely running in a different context and/or session to your browser session so there’s not an obvious tie-up.

However, in this scenario, you can get the login name of the person who modified the SharePoint task, via the Executor property of the OnTaskChanged event. Simply bind the Executor property to a string (e.g., “taskLastModifiedBy”) and whenever the task changes, SharePoint will copy the user ID to this property in the format of DOMAIN\LoginName. You can then get an SPUser object for that login name with, e.g.

SPUser user = workflowProperties.Web.AllUsers[taskLastModifiedBy];

Note: On a related subject, and the thing that prompted this post - if you’re trying to update a Person or Group field on your workflowProperties.Item, then you must pass it an SPUser object! This is bizarre, because other types of list (e.g, the task list) you can pass it a string and SharePoint will do the rest. I spent ages and all kinds of different things and always getting the “Invalid data has been used to update the list item. The field you are trying to update may be read only.” error. Annoying.

Could not load web.config file. The given key was not present in the dictionary.

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:10:06 +0000

Quick hint about debugging SharePoint projects in Visual Studio 2010. You may find a bizarre error where deploying projects/solutions is fine, but trying to debug doesn’t work. You see an error alert with the text:

“Could not load the Web.config configuration file. Check the file for any malformed XML elements, and try again. The following error occurred: The given key was not present in the dictionary.”

Checking the Web.config shows no malformed XML at all. One thing to check into is the configuration of alternate access mappings in Central Administration. For debugging to work, the Site URL property of your SharePoint project must match the URL of the Default zone for your web application.

new SPSite - FileNotFoundException

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:55:05 +0000

It seems to me that every SharePoint developer, at some point in their career, will encounter this particular error. It’s one of those infuriatingly obtuse errors that could be caused by a multitude of different issues - either individually or cumulatively. In my case, I was in the middle of developing a SharePoint timer job and I had a particular piece of code that I wasn’t too sure about, and so wanted to test very quickly, over and over again - without the rigmarole of deploying/retracting solutions, hunting through Central Admin to run the job, etc. I just wanted to run this particular section of code against the SharePoint object model and see what happened. As is a common technique for this, I started up a fresh Console Application project, pasted in my code and figured that would be enough.

Turbocharge your SQL development: get more out of SQL Server Management Studio

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 13:46:22 +0000

When SQL Server 2000 became SQL Server 2005, a huge number of things changed. DTS became SQL Server Integration Services, and as part of the package we saw the likes of Analysis Services and Reporting Services. All these additions to the SQL Server family necesitated a change in the suite of management tools - and that meant the death of Enterprise Manager and SQL Query Analyzer, tools loved by everyone, everywhere. They were combined and rebranded as a single tool: SQL Server Management Studio. DBAs and SQL developers cried out in horror - the new tool was, well, new - it was very different and required a change in working practice. What’s more, there was no choice - if you wanted SQL Server you had to use SSMS - there’s no using Enterprise Manager (although you can use SSMS to manage SQL Server 2000.)

Quick tip: Use OVER to get row numbers in subsets

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:38:27 +0000

Consider the following. You have a set of data. Within the data are multiple subsets that share an identifier. WIthin your main set, you need to number the subsets for each item within it, e.g.,

Data

ID SubsetID Name Lots more columns…
———- ———-
1 ABC Dave
2 DEF Trev
3 DEF Bob
4 DEF Steve
5 HIJ Jim
6 HIJ Bilbo

and you want something like

ID SubsetID SubsetPosition Name Lots more columns…
———- ———-
1 ABC 1 Dave
2 DEF 1 Trev
3 DEF 2 Bob
4 DEF 3 Steve
5 HIJ 1 Jim
6 HIJ 2 Bilbo

Guide: MOSS 2007 Multiple site collections on Port 80

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:39:03 +0000

Requirement: multiple site collections on port 80 on unique URLs in SharePoint 2007, e.g,. http://democlient1, http://someotherdemo
The scenario: you have one development machine which you use for multiple clients. Because of this, you want to host multiple site collections and allow a unique URL for each, without having to specify the port number in the URL. For example, if your machine name is SPDEV then by default your primary web application will respond on http://spdev. But you also want to have http://democlient1, http://someotherdemo, etc. There are a three ways of doing this. The two common ways are 1) assign unique IP addresses to each web application each responding on port 80, but this can be more complicated to setup and manage at the machine level, or 2) Use a non-standard port number for each web application, but this creates uglier URLs, e.g., http://democlient1:18765, http://someotherdemo:18734 etc.

Solution: It’s possible to achieve the requirement.

Troubleshooting BDC Associations and Related Data List Web part

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:53:18 +0000

I’ve been working with the BDC and a proprietary CRM system to bring data about sales history into SharePoint. I’ve been using the basic BDC tool - Business Data Catalog Definition Editor - that is bundled with the SharePoint SDK. It’s very basic, and there are one or two commercial products out there, but it just about does enough, and is free, after all. It enables you to define the entities, relationships and methods, and test them, within the tool. The error reporting is moderate - you’re informed about the major issues, but, some errors only appear when you’ve imported the ADF and are actually working within the SharePoint environment.

Set SharePoint BDC field value programmatically in Visual Studio workflow

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:58:09 +0000

The Business Data Catalog (BDC) in SharePoint is a superb way of hooking up virtually any disparate system to SharePoint 2007. By defining the connection in to the system, you can expose any part of the system to SharePoint, and harness some of SharePoint’s real power - for example, its powerful search capabilities. Once you’ve created your connection (your Line Of Business [LOB] system), you can attach BDC columns to any list (e.g., document library) and you can, for example, have a document with a reference to your other system, so that you can permanently associate extra data to your document, without having to reproduce the information in SharePoint and create unnecessary duplication.

Using the BDC is beyond the scope of this post, but I’d like to cover an issue that I recently encountered when trying to work with the BDC and a document library. I had a fairly simple Visual Studio 2008 workflow that ran when a new item was created in the document library.

Simplified SharePoint solution deployment

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:15:34 +0000

Any SharePoint developer will have to work with SharePoint Features at some point. Features are a great way to extend the core functionality of MOSS - in Web 2.0 speak, think of them as “plugins” and you’ll understand why they’re useful. Features can take a variety of forms - workflows being one of them. I’ve discussed in the past the usefulness of SharePoint Designer for workflow creation and eventually you’ll need to move to Visual Studio. Features (and workflows) can be designed directly in Visual Studio - support was added in 2005, but its support is further extended in 2008 - Visual Studio will generate all the required bits you need to actually get the workflow ready to be deployed to your SharePoint environment and gives you the all important debugging and code step through stuff. There’s a nice guide to the basics of workflow and Visual Studio.

Extend SharePoint Designer's workflow activities

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:52:32 +0000

SharePoint Designer 2007 is a useful tool for performing quick tasks in your SharePoint environment. It’s moreorless Frontpage on steroids, but it’s designed to interact directly with SharePoint installations. I’ve used it almost exclusively to create simple workflows - simple being the operative word. And what’s more, it’s now free! You’ll need the likes of Visual Studio to do anything complex, but for every day use where you don’t want to worry about packaging up solutions and features and getting involved with stsadm, SharePoint Designer definitely has its place.

Reporting a product bug to Microsoft

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:08:14 +0000

I needed to update our installation of SQL Server 2008 to include Integration Services so that maintenance plans would run. I have local admin privilege on the machine, but as with most Microsoft related installation tasks, you routinely get so far through the process and you’re hit with the SeSecurityPrivilege error - that is, you don’t have some permission or other. The installation process goes wrong and you have to cancel out of the whole process in order to restart it with an account that has the privilege.

Force comment entry when editing a list item

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:28:58 +0000

Quick tip: custom lists are a great way to store data about a business process or operation that doesn’t necessarily fit in a standard list. They can be used to store virtually any type of data, that makes sense in list form. For instance, you might record the configuration details of all the switches on your network. They’re especially helpful in that by enabling versioning on a list, you can create an audit trail of when things changed. Critically, though, when something changes, you’re likely to want to know why. Therefore, when someone changes an item, you might want to insist that they add a comment to quickly describe the change they have made, and why.

Workflow error help: failed on start and more

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:05:08 +0000

One of the major selling points of SharePoint is the power of workflows. Designing very basic sequential workflows in Sharepoint Designer 2007 is a very straightforward task using the workflow designer wizard. But unfortunately straightforward is the key word here, as you are limited by the functionality available to you in SharePoint Designer. Simple tasks (e.g., update an item, send an email, etc.) are doable, but, for example, you can’t do any string manipulation other than building “dynamic strings”. So even creating a suitable subject line to an email can require a complicated collection of variables and such like. SPD workflows are also very much “single use” - i.e., they start, they run, they finish. They can wait and so on, but complicated business logic is pretty difficult to program. At that point, you’ll need to get involved with Visual Studio. That’s not without its difficulties, however, and as someone coming from a Visual Studio software background, creating workflows can be a minefield. Certain expectations you may have with Winforms just go completely out the window.

Business Data Catalog tips, hints and errors

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:37:36 +0000

A few tips/hints from my experience in working with the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor to create line of business (LOB) application definition files for use in Sharepoint MOSS 2007.

Create a _SpecificFinder method - b_y default, BDC DE doesn’t create a SpecificFinder method. You’ll need one for use in Sharepoint. More here.
Wildcard search - When creating a Finder method (for use with e.g., a Wildcard search) make sure the wildcard character is defined - which is done in the very topmost node of the tree (i.e, the LOB node.) Without it you might find the query runs, you just get no results. Where you’re using SQL Server, the Wildcard character by default is %.
Multiple Finder methods - You can create multiple filters on a single finder method, just make sure you specify default values and update your e.g., SQL select statement so instead of e.g., where name like @name you change it to where name like @name and date_create > @date_create_gt… etc.
“Provided stream is invalid” - If you get this error “The provided stream is invalid (not of type IDataReader, IEnumerable or IEnumerator). Parameter name: rawAdapterEntityInstanceStream” first thing to check is that your return parameter is the last one physically specified in your file.. i.e., you can have multiple in parameters, but the return parameter has to be last in the list. The way to fix this is export your application definition file (to XML), then manually adjust the order of the parameters, then reimport to BDC DE.
4a. Note: If you make manual changes to your ADF file and want to reimport to BDC DE, you have to delete the original definition from BDC DE first.

For reference, there’s a really good series of articles on basic BDC stuff, right about here.