Creating a Custom User Site Provisioning Solution with SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 2 of 2)

Summary: Examine new capabilities built in to the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Edition, which enable business process automation and simplify the business process. This article is part 2 of 2.

Custom Permission Request Workflow

One of the most innovative features of the new MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition is the workflow feature. The new workflow capabilities are extensive, including built-in support for the following types of workflow:

• Approval

  
  

• Collect Feedback

  
  

• Collect Signatures

  
  

• Disposition Approval

  
  

• Group Approval

  
  

• Translation Management

  
  

• Issue Tracking

As a site administrator, you can instantiate these built-in workflows on any entity within MOSS with a few simple configuration steps.

However, for the permission request solution, a custom workflow is required to emulate properly the manual business process that the workflow is replacing. The workflow must accommodate sending various e-mail messages throughout the process, and depending on whether the request is approved, generate XML to be processed to add the requestor to the Members group within MOSS.

MOSS also provides a mechanism to create custom workflows. There are two primary developer tools to use for this: Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation. Using SharePoint Designer allows a business analyst or a developer to use the workflow activities that come with Windows Workflow Foundation and MOSS. The built-in workflow actions that you can use by default in SharePoint Designer include the following:

• Setting list metadata

  
  

• Creating, copying, deleting, or changing list items (including documents)

  
  

• Checking items in or out

  
  

• Pausing, starting, or stopping the workflow

  
  

• Sending e-mail messages

  
  

• Setting the moderation status of an item

  
  

• Setting an item's metadata

  
  

• Assigning tasks

You can create custom workflows with SharePoint Designer by selecting an existing document library or list within an existing MOSS or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site, and then on the File menu, point to New and then click Workflow. The workflow designer wizard appears, allowing you to create a custom workflow without writing a single line of code. The workflow designer allows you to add conditions and actions to the workflow to determine when to execute specific actions.

For example, using the built-in actions mentioned earlier, you could develop a custom workflow that checks a metadata column of a particular document in a document library, and based on the value send an e-mail message or assign a task to the appropriate team member. In any case, SharePoint Designer allows for great flexibility in designing custom workflows without the need to write code.

Using Visual Studio 2005 with the Windows Workflow Foundation add-in allows you to create custom workflow actions and complex custom workflows. The add-in for Visual Studio imports Windows Workflow Foundation activities that are available by default for you to use in designing workflows. These activities are included in a Workflow toolbox and you can drag them to the design surface of the custom workflow. The next section examines this in more detail and describes the development of the custom workflow activity used in the permission request solution.

Figures 13a and 13b show the built-in workflow activities that are included with the Windows Workflow Foundation add-in for Visual Studio in the Workflow toolbox. Figure 13a shows the built-in activities for a custom state-machine workflow project.

Figure 13a. State-machine built-in workflow activity

Figure 13b shows the built-in activities for a custom sequential workflow project. For more information, see the workflow resources in Additional Resources.

Figure 13b. Sequential Workflow built-in workflow activity in Visual Studio 2005 toolbox

Although most of the actions that must be included in this permission request workflow are available as standard workflow activities with Windows Workflow Foundation and MOSS, a custom activity was developed to generate the XML file from the submitted request, which could then be processed on other servers within the SharePoint farm.

The custom workflow activity was developed with Visual Studio 2005 and Windows Workflow Foundation Extensions add-in. The activity was then deployed to the MOSS environment and used within a custom workflow. The custom workflow was developed by using SharePoint Designer.

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Creating a Custom User Site Provisioning Solution with SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 1 of 2)

Summary: Examine new capabilities built into the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Edition, which enable business process automation and simplify the business process. This article is part 1 of 2.

Overview of a Custom User Site Provisioning Solution

This article examines some of the new capabilities that are built into the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 Enterprise Edition, which enable business process automation and simplify the business process. This article demonstrates the tight integration between the Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal, including Microsoft Office InfoPath Forms Services and the Business Data Catalog, and the various other 2007 Office system applications and features, such as InfoPath 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007. In addition, the solution that accompanies this article shows how accessing and manipulating various SharePoint Server components programmatically—such as the Member group and user permissions, and Business Data Catalog and legacy line-of-business (LOB) data sources—with the built-in SharePoint Server APIs enable this type of business process automation. The automation was developed primarily by using Visual Studio Tools for Office 2007 Second Edition and the Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation. Additionally, you can develop traditional .NET Framework console and Windows Forms applications to make use of the SharePoint Server APIs and 2007 Office system APIs that will also facilitate the automation and simplification of business processes within the enterprise.

Employee SharePoint Permissions within the Enterprise

Most organizations have an approval process in place that allows employees’ managers to approve any costs that are associated with using new IT resources implemented in the enterprise. Usually the employee who requires access to the new system initiates the process, which spans several approval cycles by various managers, as well as a long delay and many e-mail messages. This is often a monotonous process, which consumes not only the time of the employee, but also that of the approving manager.

This article presents a solution that integrates Active Directory domain controllers, LOB data, InfoPath Forms Services, and workflow with the 2007 Office system to support the submission and automation of such requests. The solution uses employee information contained within the Active Directory domain controller and the human resources database to support the submission of the request. The data pulled from these two sources provides all the employee’s relevant information and the approving cost center manager’s information. In this scenario, an employee uses a solution based on InfoPath 2007, and the Business Data Catalog and InfoPath Forms Services features of MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition to submit a request for permission to create SharePoint sites within the enterprise SharePoint portal.

The Business Data Catalog is a new, powerful feature of MOSS, which allows developers to surface LOB data up to MOSS from disparate legacy systems and LOB systems that exist within the enterprise. By default, the Business Data Catalog can connect to Oracle, CRM, and SAP databases, and other systems without extra development. The new and powerful InfoPath Forms Services feature of MOSS is a browser-based, thin-client run-time version of InfoPath, which allows users to read and complete InfoPath forms through the browser when the forms are integrated with MOSS.

The solution also allows the employees’ cost center manager to review the requests submitted, and approve or reject them. After the cost center manager reviews the request, the custom workflow and custom workflow activity, designed with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation, automatically sends out the appropriate e-mail messages and adds the appropriate permissions for the employee within the SharePoint portal.

To clarify the overall process of this custom permission request solution, the following diagram depicts the entire process flow logically and all of the various pieces and steps that make up the process.

Figure 1. Overview of entire permission request process

The Request InfoPath Form

The main user-centric piece of this process is the employee request form. This request form is an InfoPath form that the employee submits with the relevant data needed to review the request. Many of the fields on the form are pre-populated when the employee creates a request, to ensure data integrity throughout the process and to eliminate the amount of data that the employee is required to provide.

Figure 2 shows the request form that is used by the employees. The form pre-populates the following fields when the user creates a request:

• Employee NT ID

  
  

• Employee Full Name

  
  

• Employee Email

  
  

• Employee Cost Center

  
  

• Cost Center Approver Name

  
  

• Cost Center Approver Email

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Integrating Siebel CRM with Office SharePoint Server 2007

Summary: Learn how to integrate Siebel CRM 7.8 with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Introduction to Siebel CRM Integration with SharePoint Server 2007

The enterprise domains of most organizations usually have heterogeneous applications, and key business data is available to the users across the applications such as Siebel CRM, SAP, or PeopleSoft. In such scenarios, there is a need to have the key data available to users in a single-stop Web portal. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 offers one such portal to organizations around the world.

This article provides prescriptive guidance on the appropriate approach to build an integration solution between Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Siebel CRM 7.8 by using Web services. After integration, Office SharePoint Server 2007 users can view key data from the various modules in the Siebel system.

Integration Scope

The scope of this integration is to provide a read-only view of the data retrieved from line-of-business (LOB) applications—in this case Siebel CRM. How to insert and delete data in Siebel CRM from Office SharePoint Server 2007 is beyond the scope of this article.

Integration Benefits and Values

You can achieve the following benefits from this integration solution.

• The solution provides a one-stop data access of different LOB applications.

  
  

• The solution requires no training for SharePoint users in Siebel because they can access the Siebel data on the SharePoint portal.

  
  

• Office SharePoint Server 2007 features enable Siebel data to improve the efficiency of the SharePoint users, and improve the level of service provided to the customer.

  
  

• Users of Office SharePoint Server 2007 can access the different Siebel features from the Office SharePoint Server portal easily.

Solution Configuration Overview

The Business Data Catalog, a new integration feature in Office SharePoint Server 2007, provides the means to integrate data directly to LOB applications through Web services. The Business Data Catalog enables users to retrieve and display key business data from LOB applications in sites, lists, and user profiles within an Office SharePoint Server portal without any custom coding. The Business Data Catalog also supports features such as specific search, full text search, filtered data views, and so on.

Figure 1 provides a high-level overview of the participating components for this integration solution.

Figure 1. Solution Overview diagram

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Item-Level Auditing with SharePoint Server 2007

Summary: Learn about the auditing support built into Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and how to extend this support with the custom Item-Level Auditing solution.

Auditing with SharePoint Server 2007
Many companies and government agencies have policies and regulations that require them to track carefully where and how users gain access to important records and documents. In particular, they need to maintain audit logs that detail events that track data such as which users viewed and updated records and documents, and when these events occurred.

Previously, Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 did not provide extensive audit support. For example, you could not use components to audit access to pages or access to items within lists. Furthermore, event handlers in Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 document libraries fired only when a document within a library was updated. Therefore, event handlers in Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 document libraries provided no support for auditing events that occur when users view documents.

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Extending the Excel Services Programmability Framework

This first version of Excel Services, available in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, provides a simple yet-powerful programmability framework that you can customize to meet your business needs. However, because it is a first version, you might encounter certain limitations common to version 1 technologies and features. This article discusses how you can overcome these limitations, and how to also expand the following built-in functionality for your Excel Services solutions:

• Consumption of SharePoint lists



• Use of query tables on Excel Services



• Creation of external workbook references



• Exploitation of user-defined functions (UDFs) compatibility with the Microsoft Office Excel 2007 client application

In addition, the article shows how to use SQL write-back to further expand this built-in functionality.

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Integrating SharePoint Server 2007 with Community Server Membership Databases

The business scenario discussed in this article is how to enable Community Server site users to log on to sites that are running Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, by using the same credentials they use to log on to their Community Server site. Much of this article is based on Steve Peschka's post on the official Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies blog.

I recommend reading through his blog to get a better understanding of how this works by using SharePoint Products and Technologies.

The blog entry describes how to integrate the membership database of Community Server with the security model used in SharePoint Products and Technologies.

This article assumes a limited knowledge of Community Server, SharePoint Products and Technologies, and Microsoft ASP.NET.

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Creating a Web Service Connection by Using the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor

Overview of Business Data Catalog Definition Editor

The Business Data Catalog in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 exposes and incorporates line-of-business (LOB) data into other baseline portal functionality, such as lists and Enterprise Search. To incorporate this data into your portal site, you must build an application definition file, which is an XML file that identifies where the data is stored (either in a database, or as a Web service) and what format the data is stored in (for example, what the data types and primary keys are).


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The simple way to reset MOSS page caching

This is so easy solution and will not take time, just reset the IIS from the DOS prompt “iisreset”

But this is not recommended if you are working in a shared environment.

Customising SharePoint Search (MOSS only)

Thought would kill 2 birds with one stone here. First is an example of adding Microsoft Live Search results to the SharePoint Search page. Second is adding custom list/document property value to the search results summary.

Both can be seen in the screen shot below…




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MOSS History

1997 > Site Server

1999 > Digital Dashboard Starter Kit with Nuggets (Web Parts)

Microsoft Upgraded Digital Dashboard to be SPS 2001

2001 > Microsoft acquired content management vendor compass, and re-branded the product CMS 2001

2002 > CMS 2002 Released

2003 > WSS and SPS 2003

2003 > Microsoft Share point 2003

2007 > 2007 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007)

MOSS - Enabling and managing social networks (for business use) with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

While the Microsoft / Facebook expanded partnership announcement made earlier today doesn't have anything to do with SharePoint, the publicity it generated will likely get a lot more people to start thinking or asking about the value of social networking capabilities within an enterprise and between a company and its business partners as well as its customers. Eric Charran (Senior Consultant in Microsoft Consulting Services), Dino Dato-on (SharePoint Ranger), and Greg Lang (Program Manager for Microsoft Enterprise Services Communities Tools and Infrastructure) have written a soon to be published white paper that addresses the topic of the importance of social networking in an organization and how to properly implement MOSS 2007 as a social networking solution. Excerpted below are key portions of the white paper, which I hope will get you to think about MOSS 2007 as your default option for enabling and managing social networks for business use.
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MOSS - Add custom workflow activities to SharePoint Designer

Carlos Segura Sanz mentioned in his blog this useful article

Without a doubts one of the best things of MOSS 2007 is the new SharePoint Designer, and within him, the workflow designer, that allows us speedy and simple form to design workflows.

As I have commented in other occasions, if we wish to make more complex workflows, or state machines, we need to use Visual Studio.

SharePoint Designer, allows us to make sequential workflows with predetermined activities. Nevertheless, the possibility to extend the basic activities exists and we can extend the functionality of ours workflows without to write them completely in Visual Studio.

Out-the-box, SharePoint Designer includes 22 actions.





Those actions are defined in the file WSS.ACTIONS, that resides in the directory “C:\Program Files\Common files\Microsoft Shared \web server extensions\12\1033\TEMPLAT\Workflow”.

In this file, the conditions and the actions that appear within SharePoint Designer are defined.

Read More Part 1

Read More Part 2

MOSS - Create a site column

A site column is a reusable column definition, or template, that you can assign to multiple lists across multiple SharePoint sites. Site columns are useful if your organization wants to establish some consistent settings across lists and libraries. You can share the settings across multiple lists and libraries so that you don't have to re-create the settings each time. For example, suppose you define a site column named Customer. Users can add that column to their content types or list. This ensures that the column has the same attributes, at least to start with, wherever it appears.

When you add an item to the list or library, you fill out a form in which each column is represented by a field. Each field is labeled with the name of the column. If you provide a description for the column, the description appears below the field. You can use the description to help team members fill out the form by explaining what kind of information goes in the field.

1. On the portal site home page, click Site actions, point to Site Settings, and then click Modify All Site Settings.


2. On the Site Settings page, under Galleries, click Site columns.


3. On the Site Column Gallery page, click Create.


4. In the Name and Type section, type the name that you want in the Column name box.


5. Select the type of information you want to store in the column.



The following table describes the types of columns that are available, by default

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MOSS - Change the Welcome page

The Welcome page defines the page that is loaded when a user navigates to a site.

To change the Welcome page of a site, do the following:

1. On the Site Actions menu, point to Site Settings, and then click Modify All Site Settings.

    Note   If no menu appears when you point to Site Settings, click Site Settings to open the Site Settings page.

   
   


2. On the Site Settings page, under Look and Feel, click Welcome page.


3. In the Welcome Page section, click Browse to find the Welcome Page that you want to use for the site, and then double-click the item to select it.


4. Click OK.

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MOSS - About publishing-enabled site templates

When you create a site, you select a site template from the Select a template list. For example, to create a site for publishing a team’s Web pages, you select the Publishing Site template.

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Technology Specialist: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Application Development

Well the exam contains 55 questions and it covers all the development topics but so far it’s easy and not hard , I passed it with score 1000/1000 :)


So far there is no classroom training available on Microsoft or E-Learning and finally a book released Inside Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (ISBN 0-7356-2368-6)


Good luck and wish to all of you to pass the exam.


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Whitepaper: Enterprise Content Management from Microsoft

This white paper shows how Microsoft is driving innovation in ECM with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It discusses an overview of ECM drivers and challenges, keys to a successful ECM strategy, and the ECM solution from Microsoft.


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MEA MVP Open Days – Egypt 2007

Well, this is the chance to show how Microsoft keeps an eye on her MVPs.

3 days of sessions, entertainment and community activities. The Agenda for the first day was just meeting in Marriot Zamalik then dinner in Abou Elsied – Really it’s very difficult to describe how to make Besara, Molokhia and Mombar - after that the group went to the hotel to sleep.

Second day early in the hotel to start the sessions with key note from Karim Ramadan about how they keep an eye for the MVPs and how important are the community activities, sessions divided into 3 tracks, development, IT professionals and special interest, defiantly the development track got most of the people.

We finished @ 5 and there were 2 hours break until the time to go out for dinner, in these couple of hours we discussed me and Hussien Zahran some issues with 3 students from MSP who gave presentation about their project, these guys have amazing presentation skills. In the night we went to Marqiz boat for dinner and it was amazing night specially because of Nany :D the dancer.

Last day morning in MS building in the smart village, we got session and after that closing session presented by Ruari Plint MEA MVPs program manager.

After that we went to the pyramids and sphinx.

Overall the event was great and really I’m very proud of it.

>

Site Manager Error

Topic: Error message: "The object invoked has disconnected from its clients"
When modifying a rights group in the Site Manager I get the following error message.
Error: 0Description: Automation Error: The object invoked has disconnected from its clientsSeverity: 5Source: AdmnToolClient Source: OEFUsers::HandlePropDlg
How can I resolve this problem?
Answer
This can happen when the Data Execution Protection feature (new with Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows XP SP2) is enabled.
You would need to add NRClient.exe to the exclude list and to solve this problem.
You will find the option to enable/disable this option or to modify the exception list using the following steps:
Go My Computer – Properties – Advanced tab – Performance Settings button – Data Execution Tab.
check MCMS

Displaying the document URL in a document library column

Can you answer the following question?

I am trying to do something that I think should be simple in SP: display the URLs of Word docs in a doc library. I can send the URL as a link in an e-mail, but I can't figure out how to display the URL in the public view. Please help.

The answer is here

Creating a Lookup column using features.

Useful article about how to create a Site Column that is a Lookup to a List, this seemed pretty straight forward but try to know more

SharePoint 2007: Issues with DataForm Web Parts and Site Templates

Have you had this issue yet?  Open a site in SharePoint Designer, select Insert Data View from the Data View menu item, and do all the magic to add it to the page.  Now save that site as a template and hydrate a site from it.  What happens to that web part?  Mine breaks and so does all the other devs' that I work with.

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Using Delegate Controls in Sharepoint

Try to know how to replace the Sharepoint Search box on the fly with your own custom control without ever having to touch the aspx page itself. This is a very cool feature with unlimited ramifications.

Read More

Customizing MOSS 2007 My Sites within the enterprise

Steve Peschka one of SharePoint Rangers team, he is writing in the official blog of the SharePoint Product Group in MSDN, he wrote an article about "Customizing MOSS 2007 My Sites within the enterprise"
Read the article

Administering security credentials (Office SharePoint Server)

Listed TechNet articles discuss password changes for different service accounts

MOSS

• Change passwords used for administration accounts
  
• Change passwords for SQL Server services
  
• Change passwords for Central Administration and Timer service
  
• Change passwords for the Search service
  
• Change passwords for the default access account
  
• Change passwords for Shared Services Providers
  
• Change passwords for Web application pools
  
• Change passwords for single sign-on
  
• Change passwords for profile import

WSS

• Change passwords used for administration accounts
  
• Change passwords for SQL Server services
  
• Change passwords for Central Administration and Timer service
  
• Change passwords for the Search service
  
• Change passwords for the default access account
  
• Change passwords for Web application pools

Eltatawor eltabi3y lel7aga elsa23a

As we usually say this sentence “Eltatawor eltabi3y lel7aga elsa23a” and because of the aggressive growing of content management techniques, its time now to go through the new technology MOSS 2007 , its powerful amazing technology that will change the development world.
Let’s proceed with the huge GURU and try to check where we will go with it.

The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.

This case happened to me when I was deploying new environment for client, 403 is the most ugly error message you can get. There is no complete list of reasons available for this.

Error: 0

Description: The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.

Severity: 5

Source: System

Debug info: N/A

Extra info: N/A

Client Source: CExProgress::ProcessPackage

Recommended Action: N/A

 

There is main problem for this error which is the disk space, when you export SDO file there is a temp folder in this path C:\Program Files\Microsoft Content Management Server\Server\Temp\.

 

While exporting there are temp files placed in this folder so you need to have space for this files or you can change this temp folder from the registry.

Adjust the following registry value and restart IIS and AESecurityService:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\NCompass\Resolution Content Server\Configuration\ResolutionTempFolder

Issues reported with the MCMS security update (updated: 17.04.2007)

Stefan Goßner posted this article in his blog

Customers reported the following problems with the MCMS security update:

Issue 1

Symptoms:

• Resource Gallery Items show up as red-X after installing the update
  
• the DCA does not start
  
• Site Manager won’t start and throws an error indicating a missing satellite dll (NrMsgRes.dll) when done locally.
  
• Site Deployment results in an unspecified XML parser error when done from a remote machine.

Reason:

• The fix will overwrite certain registry keys underneath HKLM\NCompass and point them to C:\...

Workaround:

• If the server portion of CMS is installed:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\CmsInstallLocation
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\SatelliteDLL
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\Resolution Content Server\dir
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\Resolution Content Server\Database Manager\PhysicalExecPrefix
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\Resolution Content Server\Database Manager\PhysicalReadPrefix
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application\MCMS\EventMessageFile
  
  
• If the client portion is installed:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\NCompass Resolution Client\Dir
  
  
• if Site Stager is installed:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\Staging Server\ExePath
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\Staging Server\LogsDirectory
  

Issue 2

Symptom:

• The following error message shows up on the CMS site:
  
  Description: Could not load file or assembly
  'Microsoft.ContentManagement.Common, Version=5.0.1200.0, Culture=neutral,
  PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system
  cannot find the file specified.
  Severity: 5
  Source: AEJavaProxy
  Debug info: N/A
  Extra info: N/A
  Client Source: Login::ctlLogin_Click
  Recommended Action: N/A

Reason:

• in some situations the fix seems to remove the Microsoft.ContentManagement.Common dll from the GAC.
   

Workarounds

• manually add the DLL to the GAC.

Issue 3

Symptom:

• the fixes addressed by the hotfixes 923755 and 914782 show up again after installing the security fix.

Reason:

• the security fix reverts the fixed files to the SP2 version 

Workarounds

• install the hotfixes again after installing the security fix.

MCMS Ad Rotator Control has been adapted for MOSS 2007

William Cornwill has published an article on how to modify the MCMS AdRotator control to work with MOSS 2007.

Support for changes to the databases that are used by Office server products

The Microsoft Office server products that are listed in the "Applies to" section store data in Microsoft SQL Server databases. These products use various stored procedures for regular processing. Therefore, the Microsoft SQL Server databases are important to the successful operation of these products.
Read More

Security fix for MCMS 2001 and 2002 has been released (Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-018)

Microsoft release a security update for MCMS 2001 and 2002, This update resolves two newly discovered, privately reported vulnerabilities. Each vulnerability is documented in the "Vulnerability Details" section of this bulletin.
The 2 problems are
1 - CMS Memory Corruption Vulnerability
2 - CMS Cross-Site Scripting and Spoofing Vulnerability
Read More

Again Win2003 with CMS Arabic problems

Radwa came to me asking for a problem she has on a live site, the client added the posts with Arabic names. OpppppppS , now they can’t browse it, I mentioned this problem before http://shadiesm.blogspot.com/2006/11/arabic-post-name-problems-with-windows.html , the problem is Win2003 cant parse the Arabic encoding in right format to CMS so it can’t open it, the solution is to open the posts with GUID not post.url.

Backup the CMS DB (SDO file)

a. Open the root folder in the IIS
b. You will find a file called web.config cut this file and paste it on the desk top (please note that this will make the site down so you have to put under maintenance page during the backup operation)
c. Open the site manager
d. From the file menu choose package > export
e. A new window will appear click include
f. In the end of this window there is button called browse click on it and select the destination to save the file
g. After that click export
h. A new small window will open click yes to view the report
i. A new page will open with a report about all the objects make sure in the end of it that all channels, templates and resources are exported completely
j. Click export again this will export the database.
k. Go to the desktop and take the web.config file then place it again on the root

Congratulations Hus for MVP for the second time

Man, you always did great in serving the community so I just wanna congratulate you for taking the MVP for the second time, really you deserve it and I’m waiting for more and more from you.

Microsoft Content Management Server MVP

I got a confirmation mail that I got the MVP for Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 , Really I’d like to thank all the people who helped me , special thanks to Hanan Abdel Meguide , Mohamed Wahby , Khaled Hnidak, Nader Torki and Hussien Zahran.
Thank you all and from success to another soon isa

How to get MCMS 2002 SP2, VS.NET 2005 and Team Foundation Server working together

Stefan Goßner posted this important article on his blog. Thanks Stefan for this article
Stefan Wrote
As I dicussed earlier MCMS is not supported with Team Foundation Server. The reason is that the developer tools shipped with MCMS are incompatible with Team Foundation Server and raise an exception when items are checked in.
This might be a significant design limitation for customers, so I spent some time to identify a workaround for this problem. The problem is caused by the developer tools integration in VS.NET 2005. To get Team Foundation Server working with an MCMS template project it would be required to disable the developer tools for this specific project. To still allow users to manage template gallery item it would be required to use a standalone version of MCMS template explorer.
Read More

How to maintain a Microsoft Content Management Server database

This article discusses general best practices for maintaining your Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) database by using tools that are included with the MCMS client tools and with SQL Enterprise Manager.

This article also discusses a substitute process for the Background Process (BP). This substitute process includes a SQL stored procedure version of the BP together with an ASP sample script to delete expired postings and to delete expired pages in your MCMS database.

Note The substitute process is for MCMS 2001 only.

Read More

MCMS and .NET 3.0 / WCF

Sometimes you need to write webservice coded in .NET 3.0 / WCF but the problem here is the site manager.
In this case Site Manager will not run if .NET 3.0 is installed. You would need to create a config file to enforce the usage of .NET 2.0 and to separate the environment for .NET versions to be able to run both Site Manager and your web service.

Unauthorized user able to create posting !!!!!!

This case was reported on microsoft.public.cmserver.general group

Case:
We have multiple websites hosted on the same CMS farm by mapping Channel Names to Host Header Names. On one of the sites any user whose is a member our AD group can create new page/posting even though they are not assigned any role in the CMS system. This happens only on one site among the several sites in the server.
Have anyone come across this issue before.

Answer:
please check your rights groups.
Sounds as if the guest account has been assigned to a non-Subscriber rights group.
This is not supported and will lead to such an issue.

Answered by: Stefan Goßner

The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized

I get an HTTP 401 error in Site Manager when trying to export or import items. What might be causing the problem?
Answer
1 - Ensure that the 'ASPNET' account has the "Impersonate a client after authentication" privilege.
2 - Ensure that the /MCMS virtual directory has anonymous access enabled.
3 - Ensure that the /NR virtual directory has anonymous access enabled.

Failures occurred during multi-object rollback. The session transaction was rolled back. Contact the site administrator

As usual I came yesterday to my office and opened the mail then I found mail from client say “very urgent- CMS error” opppppppppps, site is up and running since 6 months so what happen?

So I told them that the problem will be one of the following


1 – Transaction log reached very big size and I recommended to them these articles

Microsoft.com
http://www.banmanpro.com/support/logfiles.asp .



Finally the error was because they did replication to the database.

Creat New Page error

Today I had a critical demo on staging server and while I’m trying to create new post I got this error Contact the Web site administrator if you believe this directory should allow execute access. The problem was in the IIS that I should allow scripts and executables in the execute permission

How to: Customize the Variation Root Landing Logic

When you provision a site collection in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and configure variations, Office SharePoint Server 2007 does the following:

• Creates a page in the variation home site named VariationRoot using the VariationRootPageLayout.aspx page layout file in the Master Page and Page Layouts Gallery.


• Replaces the default Welcome page of the Variation home site with the VariationRoot page.

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How to: Deploy Content Between Servers

This code example shows how to use the object model to create paths and jobs that deploy content between site collections. This code assumes that the source and destination site collections are in the same server farm. However, paths can be configured between different server farms. The tasks this code performs can also be done through the user interface in SharePoint Central Administration.

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Custom Document to Page Converters

The document to Web page conversion process is built on the document converter infrastructure in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. And, just like the document converter infrastructure, it also provides developers with the ability to create their own custom document converters.

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Web Content Management: Overview

Web content management systems allow nontechnical users to author and manage branded content on the Web with minimal involvement from IT. These systems typically include:

• Simple end-user page authoring experience


• Separation of branding (presentation) from content


• Controlled publishing


• Site management tools

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Application Integration Scenarios with SharePoint 2007 Technologies

Kailash Kalyani will introduce a session in MDC 2007 about Application Integration Scenarios with SharePoint 2007 Technologies, it’s very important session about how to integrate with SharePoint 2007. See you their all.
Session time - Day Three - 07 Feb 2007
Room - Khafraa A

MDC 2007 knocks the doors

MDC 2007 is the biggest Developers' Conference of the year in the Middleeast, and is a critical event for any developer who wants to see the newest as well as the next-generation technology. MDC07 is full of sessions and activities that help you learn the current and future of the Microsoft platform and get to know people who are as passionate about software as you are.

Who should attend MDC 2007?

MDC 2007 is the "must-attend" event for enterprise developers, software architects, software engineers, Web developers, and Web development managers wanting to stay in sync with Microsoft's platform roadmap.

MSDN Webcast: The Evolution of Web Content Management in the 2007 Version of Microsoft Office (Level 200)

Event Overview

The Web Content Management (WCM) technology in the upcoming 2007 version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server represents the first major release of Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) since 2002. This webcast looks at the major improvements WCM offers over MCMS. We discuss major design changes such as the Windows SharePoint Services-based architecture and the altered underlying storage model. Learn about new WCM concepts such as content types, field controls, workflows, and recycle bins. The presentation concludes with a look at what is involved in migrating your MCMS 2002 site to the WCM in Office SharePoint Server 2007.

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TechNet Webcast: Preparing for Web Content Management with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200)

Event Overview

Many organizations are currently managing their Web content with Microsoft Content Management Server 2002. The new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 handles many of the capabilities previously performed by Content Management Server while taking advantage of SharePoint foundation technologies that combine both document management and Web content management. In this webcast, learn about these new content management features and the various tools and resources that are available to help customers migrate their existing Content Management Server projects to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
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SharePoint Server 2007 for MCMS 2002 Developers

Summary: Explore Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, which merges functionality of Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 with new functionality to create one integrated set of technologies built on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. (20 printed pages)

Applies to: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Content Management Server 2002

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Planning MCMS 2002 Application Migration to SharePoint Server 2007

Summary:   This article is intended as a guide for technical decision makers who are considering migrating Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 applications to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. (7 printed pages)

Why Migrate from MCMS 2002 to SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 are truly integrated into a common architecture in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

In Office SharePoint Server 2007, many tasks such as navigation, summary links, and scheduled deployment that an MCMS 2002 developer would perform can now be performed by users or IT professionals.

SharePoint Server 2007 is built upon Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3), which includes many features previously provided by MCMS 2002, such as workflow and authentication. In addition, because SharePoint Server 2007 is based upon Windows SharePoint Services V3, which is based upon Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0, you can use functionality such as master pages, authentication providers, and navigation providers in SharePoint Server 2007.

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Mapping MCMS 2002 APIs to SharePoint Server 2007

Summary: The services previously provided by Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 are now provided by Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. SharePoint Server is built upon Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3). This article helps you determine how the MCMS Publishing API (PAPI) maps to an equivalent but different Publishing API in SharePoint Server 2007. (33 printed pages)

Introduction

Many of the tasks involved in the development of a Web site are related to customizing it for particular business needs. Some of these customizations are related to the site appearance and some to the functionality provided by the Web site. In Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002, the developer had to perform most of these tasks by using the MCMS Publishing API (PAPI), which provides access to the underlying MCMS object model.

By default, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides significant Web content publishing features; most tasks that required custom code in MCMS can be accomplished by configuration of existing capabilities and do not require custom code. A powerful Publishing API is always available for tasks that require special customizations. This article helps you determine how the MCMS PAPI maps to an equivalent but different Publishing API in SharePoint Server 2007.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 is built on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3). As a result, many Windows SharePoint Services features are exposed by default, and the infrastructure allows customization to be performed without any coding. However, there are business scenarios where you may need extended customization.

Due to the technology shift, a new API has been created for SharePoint Server 2007 to work together with Windows SharePoint Services V3. The managed and COM-based APIs in MCMS 2002, including the site deployment API, have been entirely replaced by managed code.

This article is organized by MCMS 2002 concepts. Each section compares the MCMS topic to the equivalent topic in SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services.

This article does not address configuration or step-by-step instructions for SharePoint Server, but instead points to the object model classes so you can learn where to look for more information.

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MCMS 2002: CMS Assessment Tool

Brief Description

(Beta 2 version)
Assess and analyze your Microsoft® Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 site to determine the level of work needed to migrate it to Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007.

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Assessing and Analyzing Your MCMS 2002 Application for Migration

Examine how to install, run, and use the CMS Assessment Tool to assess your Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 site to determine the level of work required to migrate the site to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Introduction to Assessing MCMS 2002 Applications

This article is intended to guide you in assessing and analyzing your Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 applications so that you can prepare to migrate to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. You can use the CMS Assessment Tool reports to assess the readiness of your current MCMS 2002 applications.

As part of your upgrade project, you must analyze your MCMS 2002 application. Analysis involves identifying all data, code, and components in the application, and then determining a logical, cohesive strategy to perform the migration. By analyzing your application, you can help achieve a smoother migration that you can complete on time and on budget.

The CMS Assessment Tool collects information that assists you in locating components that you need to migrate. You can use this information to determine the functionality that is provided by your custom code that interacts directly with MCMS.

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Product support lifecycle information by product

Mainstream support for MCMS 2002 will end January 2008. Extended supported
will end in 2013.

Here you can see the support statement:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=1567

What a silly problem. Site is down!!!!

Last weekend I was in my bed and I got a phone call from a client, he was shocked and said to me please help me the live site is down. Opppppps, he got a message that directory listing denied, it seems that he just needs to add a default page in the IIS so I told him to chick this default page he confirmed yes its exists, I tried to follow with him all the suitable scenarios but nothing, finally I decided to go to him to see what is the problem, i logged into the site with the administrator credentials then the site worked? So what is the problem with the subscriber users? Why they can’t access CMS DB? I decided to check all the users on the site manager and on the server. Oppppppppppppps I found in editors group unknown user, who is this unknown user? I asked the administrator, he confirmed that they had a user on the domain but they deleted his account, Oh my god, how come to delete his account while he has privilege as editor on site manager? So this is what makes the site down and once I deleted this unknown user system works fine.Really what a silly problem!!!!

Content Management Server 2002 Service Pack 2 installation information

This article contains installation information for Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 Service Pack 2 (SP2).

For more information about how to obtain the Content Management Server 2002 service packs, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
How to obtain the latest Content Management Server 2002 service pack

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