Archives
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Phone number mask in a DataView WebPart (DVWP)
This came up today on the [sharepointdiscussions] list. A user needed to display a read-only field in a phone number format; it's pretty simple, but it may be just what you need.
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Generate a Word document from list data
This came up on a discussion list lately, so I threw together some code to meet the need. In short, a colleague needed to take the results of an InfoPath form survey and give them to the user in Word format. The form data was already in a list item, so it was a simple matter of using the SharePoint API to get the list item, formatting the data appropriately, and using response headers to make the client machine treat the response as MS Word content.
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Simple Pleasures in SP 2010: TryGetList method
How many times has this happened to you?
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FBA and the SSPPP (Shared Service Provider People Picker)
This week, I had to create a few profiles (by hand) for Forms Auth user accounts. Of course, in order to do this, you need to make sure the SSP's People Picker can recognize them. I dutifully added the provider info and the requisite connection string to the SSP web.config, spun it up, and... nothing. It had no idea who these users were.
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SharePoint Designer does it again
Did you know that when you're working on custom Edit form and add an extra field via the Columns command, SharePoint Designer will sometimes add the field in Insert mode instead of Update mode? Yes, it will. Sometimes. The binding portion of the field should look like this:
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Audiencing with Forms-Based Authentication (FBA)
This really is no different from when you create an audience with regular old NTLM (Windows Authentication). The difference is that while the AD provider is set up by default in all environments, the extra membership provider (that you use for Forms Authentication) isn't included anywhere except in the web application where you install it. To be able to find your FBA users in the audience creation tool, you'll need to add the extra membership provider(s) to the web.config for your SSP site in IIS. At that point, the People Picker should start recognizing your Forms Auth users, and you can create your audience as needed.
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Why is my content database so large?
If your SharePoint site collection hasn't grown, but your content database has, the most likely culprit is versioning. If a list -- or worse, a library -- has versioning enabled, the default is to keep every single one. That means that every time someone edits and checks in a document, its storage footprint increases by the size of the document (and probably a little more).
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SharePointBeginners: A new group for a global noob community
Recently, a discussion broke out (go figure) on a SharePoint list that I frequent. It had grown in size to the point where the more advanced members were sometimes turned off by the volume of questions that appeared TOO simple. This happens all the time, as something becomes larger and specialization is necessary.
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When SharePoint Designer has its own designs
Recently, a colleague came to me with a simple task and an inscrutable error. He just wanted to populate a text field with a querystring value. If you've ever done this in SPD, you know it's fairly simple: create a parameter, map it to a querystring value, and then use the resulting parameter name in your form field.
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Live Meeting error: malformed email address... or IS IT???
During a remote SharePoint training session this morning, Live Meeting presented one of our instructors with the following gem: "An attendee email address is malformed". This was particularly troubling since a wizard took care of adding all the entries, and they looked correct (even after being sifted through my character analysis tool).
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AgileDotNet in Dallas
This conference was a big hit last time, and now it's better then ever. If you're wondering about how Agile applies to your daily business, or if you just want to see how it looks when it's done right, you owe it to yourself to check out AgileDotNet on April 30th.
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A Quick Primer on SharePoint Customization
This one goes out to all the people who have been asked to change the way a SharePoint site looks. Management wants to know how long it will take, and you can whip that out by tomorrow, right? If you don't have time to prepare a treatise on what's involved, or if you just want to lend some extra weight to your case by quoting a blogger who was an MVP for seven years, then dive right in; this post is for you.
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Clunky workarounds that work: catching field changes in a SPD workflow (with no custom code)
Yes, you can do this with an Event Receiver. You might be able to do it with a VS workflow, or possibly one of those fancy third-party tools... maybe not. But if you're a SharePoint admin with nothing but SharePoint Designer and you need to determine if a field changed, here's how.
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GAC-blocked: Access denied for assembly _XXXX_
As with most of my blog discoveries, this one was born the hard way: on the ragged slopes of insanity, amid the dying cries of a thousand savage deadlines... much like the fabled Robot al'Thor.
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Quick fixes: Removing the Delete button from a SharePoint 2007 OOTB edit form
I know what you're thinking. "If you don't want them to delete the item, why don't you just create a special permission level without the ability to do that?"
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SharePoint Designer Video: Binding to a SharePoint List via Web Service
This is an often-neglected feature of SPD, which is a shame because it's pretty powerful. The above-linked clip walks through a simple calling of the Lists web service.