SharePoint Insight

List of SharePoint Base Permissions with their Hex and Decimal Values

Here is the list of all SharePoint base permissions valid for Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Foundation both, along with their Hex and decimal values. I hope it will help you to easily reference them in your projects.

What is the meaning of “Limited Access” in SharePoint?

If you are wondering what is “Limited Access” in SharePoint and how does it affect you then here is the simple explanation:

“Limited Access” in SharePoint means a user has an access to an item of the page specifically but not the whole SharePoint list. Normally, we don’t manage individual item permissions and list items normally inherit their permissions from their parent list but sometimes you may need to share a document or a an item to another user who does not have access to the parent list of that item. In this case, you will break the inheritance for that item/document and give permission specifically to that item/document.

Now, since that document resides under its parent library therefore, user will automatically get the “Limited Access” to the parent list which will in turn allow the user to only access that specific document.

For more information, I will recommend you to read Michael Nemtsev article here

Continuous Integration of SharePoint Project by using TFS

SharePoint projects are some what special in the way they use assemblies and some time it is very difficult to setup your TFS build process for continuous integration. Today, SharePoint Developer Team has published an excellent step-by-step process to properly setup your TFS Build Process for SharePoint Projects. You can read the article here

This article guides about the following:

1. How to configure the build server to properly compile the SharePoint projects?
2. List of necessary SharePoint assemblies to make sure compilation succeeds.
3. How to update Powershell script to add the required files on Build server?
4. Steps to create build definition.
5. How to setup build workflow?

I would highly recommend you to read this article before embarking on your next SharePoint project.

Solution for “Access denied by Business Data Connectivity” Error

If you are trying to create external data type list and get the error “Access Denied by Business Data Connectivity” then the most common reason for that can be the incorrect permissions for your target External Content Type. To fix the issue, please perform the following steps:

1. Open your SharePoint 2010 Central Administration Page
2. Under Application Management, click Manage service applications
3. Click Business Data Connectivity Service link
4. List of all external content types will be displayed, select your target external content type by checking it
5. Click Set Object Permissions on Ribbon
6. “Set Object Permissions” dialogue box will be displayed, add yourself or any other users, as you want
7. Check at least Selectable in client permission in permissions list
8. Click OK to save your changes

Now try to view your external content types list and Bingo! there will be no more “Access denied by Business Data Connectivity” error message!

 

Solution: The Taxonomy feature (Feature ID “73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C”) has not been activated

If you are trying to add a Managed Metadata type column and getting “The Taxonomy feature (Feature ID “73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C”) has not been activated” error then here is the quickest way to enable the required feature by using following PowerShell cmdlet:

Enable-SPFeature -id “73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C” -url “YourSiteUrl”

 

 

 

 

 

SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 is out!

Today Microsoft has released the much awaited Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010 along with Office 2010.  Along with many bug fixes and minor updates, here is a quick list of new functionality which SP1 will add in your SharePoint environment:

 

1. For video display, you will now be able to select a frame as a thumbnail by using “Video Thumbnail Picker”
2. Users will have better visibility of how their SharePoint storage is being used.
3. Performance have been enhanced to download large files from SharePoint.
4. Alerts were not functioning properly in some scenarios, logic has been enhanced.
5. Before SP1, you could not have some pages rendered in Internet Explorer 9 document mode (instead of Internet Explorer 8). Starting with SP1, a control is available that lets you set individual pages to be rendered in Internet Explorer 9.
6. URLs to documents in document libraries are very long and include the Source parameter when the URL is copied (e.g., by right-clicking and selecting Copy Shortcut). In SP1, the Source parameter is not included in a copied URL, so the URL is much shorter.

and here are some more useful changes list as mentioned in technet blog here

1. Improved support for Internet Explorer 9.
2. Recycle bin: Lets you restore a site collection or a web that was deleted.
3. Remote Backup Systems (RBS) and shallow copy can decrease downtime and increase efficiency by moving pointers to databases instead of moving databases.
4. You can see which folders are taking up valuable space with the improved Storage Management feature in site settings.
5. Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2011.
6. A more robust Search Host Distribution service that improves error recovery and performance during the search crawl.
7. Adds backup and restore functionality to recover deleted site collections and webs.

 

List of Special Pages in SharePoint 2010 which do not use any master page

There are some special pages in SharePoint 2010 which do not use any master page. You should be aware of these pages to avoid bad user experience while branding your site. Following is the list of those pages:

1. AccessDenied.aspx : Displays, if user does not have permission to perform respective action.
2. Confirmation.aspx : Displays, to confirm that your intended operation has been completed successfuly.
3. Error.aspx : Displays, whenever an error occurs while processing the page.
4. Reqacc.aspx : Displays, whenever user need to requests the access to certain area of SharePoint site.
5. SignOut.aspx : Displays, when user signs out.
6. WebDeleted.aspx : Displays, to confirm that the site has been successfuly deleted.

Quickest way to add Facebook Like Button on your SharePoint page

Facebook is everywhere. No one can deny the importance of Facebook’s social media capabilities.

If you want to add the Facebook Like button on your SharePoint pages then just paste the following code in a Content Editor Web Part and you will instantly get the Like button for that page. You do not need to hardcode the URL of your page as the given code automatically find it for you.

Just copy paste it and enjoy!

<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

      <!--
      {
       var url = location.href;
       var url_parts = url.split('?');
       var main_url = url_parts[0];
       var facebookLike="<fb:like href='" + main_url + "' show_faces='true' width='450' font=''></fb:like>"

       document.write(facebookLike);
      }
      // -->
</SCRIPT>

HTML Field Control versus Content Editor Web Part

Normally, people feel strong temptation to use Content Editor Web Part (CEWP) whenever they need to display HTML content on a SharePoint page. There is nothing wrong in using CEWP as far as you know when to use it and what are the alternatives. Most of the time CEWP performs as needed but there are some scenarios where we should consider using Field Control (FC)  instead of using CEWP.

Please note that Field Controls are only available in Publishing sites and are designed to display HTML content as per the page layout. Here are some useful tips for when to use CEWP and when to use Field Controls:

Versioning (Use Field Control):

If you want to make sure you have full version history of a publishing page then use field control instead of CEWP because content of FC is stored in the list infrastructure and follow all the versioning capabilities of SharePoint. On the other hand, CEWP content is stored in ASP.NET profile infrastructure along with the URL of the page. It has no connection whatsoever with the versioning capabilities of SharePoint.

Content Targeting (Use CEWP):

If you want to display some content based on the context of the current user then you have no choice except using CEWP.  CEWP is a web part and any web part can be made visible by using Audience targeting. FC has no such mechanism of utilizing Audience targeting.

Want Strict control of User interface and Page Layout? (Use Field Controls):

If you don’t want to allow content editors to change the layout of your pages or to include javascripts then use Field Controls. FC just contains the value and can not include javascript. Only page designers are able to specify how each FC will be rendered on the page. Whereas, CEWP gives more power to the content editor which can lead to change the user interface elements by applying javascript and CSS techniques.

For further information, I will recommend to read this article

Find duplicate items in SharePoint

There are some situations when two different users of SharePoint upload same document with two different names. This mostly happens when both of them do not know that someone else has already uploaded same document earlier. SharePoint displays the “[View duplicates]” link when it finds duplicate items for a given search result.

On clicking the “[View duplicates]” link, you will notice that SharePoint searches the duplicate items by creating a keyword query of “duplicate:Full Document Url”

To make our life easier, I have created a Feature which will add a context menu item in ECB and will allow user to directly find duplicates for any item, from the context menu, without first going to the search page.

To get the idea, here is a snapshot of what you will get once our feature is activate:

User will just click on View Duplicates option and will get all the duplicate documents for the selected document.

Implementation:

1. Create a folder named ViewDuplicates under FEATURES folder of your SharePoint installation.
2. Create a file called Feature.xml under ViewDuplicates folder.
3. Paste the following code in Feature.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Feature  Id="960206DD-D07E-4b64-AD8A-3E48D7527060"
          Title="View Duplicates"
          Description="This feature allows user to view duplicate copies of the selected document."
          ImageUrl="CALVIEW.GIF"
          Version="1.0.0.0"
          Scope="Site"
          Hidden="FALSE"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <ElementManifests>
    <ElementManifest Location="elements.xml"/>
  </ElementManifests>
</Feature>

4. Create a file called Elements.xml under ViewDuplicates folder.
5. Paste the following code in Element.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">

  <!-- Per Item Dropdown (ECB) Link -->
  <CustomAction Id="ViewDuplicates.ECBItemMenu"
    RegistrationType="List"
    RegistrationId="101"
    ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/GORTL.GIF"
    Location="EditControlBlock"
    Sequence="300"
    Title="View Duplicates">
    <UrlAction Url="javascript:function findDuplicates(){var itemUrl='{ItemUrl}'; var fullUrl=location.protocol+'//'+location.host+itemUrl;  window.location.href='/Search/results.aspx?k=duplicates:&quot;'+ fullUrl + '&quot;'};findDuplicates();"/>
  </CustomAction>

</Elements>

6. Install the feature by executing stsadm -o installfeature -name ViewDuplicates
7. Activate the feature by executing stsadm -o activatefeature -name ViewDuplicates -url <YourSiteCollectionUrl>. Replace <YourSiteCollectionUrl> by the url of your site collection.
8. Now, you will get “View Duplicates” option with every document. Click it and Enjoy!