Shared Pointing

Thursday, 20 March 2014

Take a photograph, make it searchable

The digital workplace has had the ability to photograph a Whiteboard for some time, whether for personal notes or to share with others. There are also mobile apps dedicated to this - even Google Drive has a 'Scan' feature with OCR text recognition, allowing the text to be indexed and thus discoverable.

Now there's something from Microsoft. It's called Office Lens. Though unfortunately only in the Windows Phone Store at the moment. Let's hope they release also an Android and iOS version.

http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/17/office-lens-a-onenote-scanner-for-your-pocket/

Wednesday, 27 March 2013

SharePoint Configuration Guidance for 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance

In April 2012, Microsoft published a White Paper titled SharePoint Configuration Guidance for 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance – I urge any SharePoint person involved in with Computer Systems Validation (CSV) subject to read it.

It’s rudimentary and unlikely that you will use exactly the use cases mentioned, but the concepts are there. It mentions one or two server technologies which may not be available in tightly governed organisations but I think that the real value is where it goes on to detail what can be done with Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 out-of-the-box.

Whether you agree or disagree, it then goes on to explain how exactly the Office clients and the SharePoint server platform meet aspects of 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance.

Direct link to the white paper: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/A/A/9AA9CACF-B414-466B-BBED-86507D1D24FF/SharePoint-Configuration-Guidance-for-21-CFR-Part-11-Compliance.pdf

Wednesday, 4 July 2012

SharePoint ECMA libs in non-master page

If you have a SharePoint .aspx page that has no master page content or containers and you want to include the SharePoint ECMA client object model libs, SharePoint is very particular about how you do that.

As we know, including the libraries is as simple as including the following line of markup:

<SharePoint:ScriptLink runat="server" ID="sl" Name="SP.js" OnDemand="false" Localizable="false" />

Note: the OnDemand attribute is set to false here to ensure that the script files are loaded immediately and so that we don't have to over-complicate with ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded()

The key thing to remember with this piece of markup is that it MUST appear after the form element. So it will look a little like this:

<form id="form1" runat="server">
<SharePoint:ScriptLink runat="server" ID="sl" Name="SP.js" OnDemand="false" Localizable="false" />

I had originally tried to put this in the <head> ... </head> element and was left head-scratching as to why it failed to include the scripts.

Friday, 30 March 2012

Configuring SQL Server Denali Reporting Services SharePoint 2010Integration

Great guide pointing out that if you should happen to install SQL Server Reporting Services 2012 before installing SharePoint, you must then let SharePoint 2010 know it's there and install the service.

http://denglishbi.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/configuring-sql-server-denali-reporting-services-sharepoint-2010-integration/

Thanks Dan!

Friday, 14 January 2011

XSLTListViewWebPart: Using CAML Query Parameters

After much searching around followed by a fair bit of trial and error, I figured out how to make use of Data View Parameters in a CAML Query in an XSLTListViewWebPart. Bear in mind I am configuring this using SharePoint designer.
So I have a list web part on a page, I open up that page using SharePoint Designer 2010 and begin editing under the hood. Once you've added a Data View Parameter you're then able to embed it as a parameter into your CAML query like so (Parameters in Bold):

<Query>
     <OrderBy> … </OrderBy>
     <Where>
     <Contains>
           <FieldRef Name="FileRef" />
           <Value Type="Text">{year}/{month}</Value>

</Contains>

</Where>
</Query>

Despite being so easy to implement, not once did I find it documented anywhere. I've labelled this post as I would have searched for it in the hope it helps out others looking for the same thing.

Monday, 10 January 2011

DataSourceID is either missing or set to an empty string

When fiddling around with the CoreResultsWebPart in SharePoint designer, or any web part for that matter, it’s easy to make mistakes in the markup.

However, more specifically, when you make a mistake in the markup of the CoreResultsWebPart it will always give the error DataSourceID is either missing or set to an empty string:

So of course, the first thing you do after seeing this is check your data source. I dragged another web part onto the page and compared the configuration with the one I’d been playing with in SPD. No difference – odd.

It was only through looking through the web part code that I noticed I had not closed a <div> tag that I’d put in for display of an image. I added the closing div tag </div> and voila! The web part no longer presented me with an error.

Having search around for instances where people were having the same or similar problem, somebody had suggested that you get this generic error no matter what’s wrong with your CoreResultsWebPart. So if you see the error and you believe the data source is intact, don’t be too alarmed – check your Web Part markup.

Tuesday, 14 September 2010

Connecting To SSAS Remotely Using Excel

If you plan to connect to SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) over the network using Excel, and your server uses Windows Firewall for protection, then you’re going to need to know how to open up Windows Firewall in order allow the connection.

Here’s how: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174937.aspx

If you try and connect without allowing such connections through the firewall, you will repeatedly get a message saying something along the lines of:

If you’ve opened up the firewall and you still see this error then I’d suggest checking your installed versions of MS OLE DB, MDAC and MSXML.