Gordon Duthie's Blog

Displaying SharePoint rating field in a DataGrid

Posted: 29th November 2011 in Cutstom Controls, Sharepoint 2010

One of my latest challenges was to display one of the new SharePoint 2010 social fields in a datagrid. At first this was just to display the field, but after the client seen the mouse-over functionality on the list item, they wanted to be able to assign a rating straight from the grid without having to go to the item itself. So, here’s how I went about it.

Firstly I created a custom control call as seen in the code sample below:

Rating Control

 [DefaultProperty("Rating")]
    [ToolboxData("<{0}:RatingControl runat=server></{0}:RatingControl>")]
    public class RatingControl : WebControl
    {
        protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnInit(e);
            Page.RegisterRequiresControlState(this);
        }
 
 
        [Bindable(true)]
        [Category("Binding")]
        [DefaultValue("")]
        [Localizable(true)]
        public SPField RatingField
        {
            get
            {
                SPField field = (SPField)ViewState["RatingField"];
                return field;
            }
 
            set
            {
                ViewState["RatingField"] = value;
            }
        }
 
 
        [Bindable(true)]
        [Category("Binding")]
        [DefaultValue("")]
        [Localizable(true)]
        public int ListItemId
        {
            get
            {
                return Convert.ToInt32(ViewState["ListItemId"]);
            }
 
            set
            {
                ViewState["ListItemId"] = value;
            }
        }
 
 
        [Bindable(true)]
        [Category("Binding")]
        [DefaultValue("")]
        [Localizable(true)]
        public Guid ListId
        {
            get
            {
                Guid id = (Guid)ViewState["ListId"];
                return id;
            }
 
            set
            {
                ViewState["ListId"] = value;
            }
        }
 
        protected override void CreateChildControls()
        {
 
            if (this.ChildControlsCreated)
                return;
 
            
            BaseFieldControl renderingcontrol = this.RatingField.FieldRenderingControl;
            renderingcontrol.ControlMode = SPControlMode.Display;
            renderingcontrol.ListId = this.ListId;
            renderingcontrol.ItemId = this.ListItemId;
            Controls.Add(renderingcontrol);
            this.ChildControlsCreated = true; 
           
           
            
       }

Next, after adding a new template column to the datagrid containing a place holder (DataGrid source), then binding the data source to the ListItemCollection returned.

DataGrid Source

<asp:TemplateColumn>
         <HeaderTemplate>
                Rating
            </HeaderTemplate>
            <ItemTemplate>
                <asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="RatingPlaceHolder"></asp:PlaceHolder>
            </ItemTemplate>
        </asp:TemplateColumn>

I create a new instance of the rating control on the girdview OnItemDataBound event receiver and add it to the place holder.

OnItemDataBound

protected void SearchResultsGridView_OnItemDataBound(object sender, DataGridItemEventArgs e)
     {
         if (e.Item.ItemType == ListItemType.Item || e.Item.ItemType == ListItemType.AlternatingItem)
         {
             Label lastModifiedLabel = (Label)e.Item.FindControl("LastModifiedLabel");
             lastModifiedLabel.Text = Convert.ToDateTime(DataBinder.Eval(e.Item.DataItem, "ModifiedDate")).ToString("dd-MMM-yyyy");
             PlaceHolder placeHolder = (PlaceHolder)e.Item.FindControl("RatingPlaceHolder");
             ratingControl = new RatingControl();
             ratingControl.RatingField = (SPField)DataBinder.Eval(e.Item.DataItem, "RatingField");
             ratingControl.ListId = (Guid)DataBinder.Eval(e.Item.DataItem, "ListId");
             ratingControl.ListItemId = Convert.ToInt32(DataBinder.Eval(e.Item.DataItem, "Id"));
             placeHolder.Controls.Add(ratingControl); 
         }
    }

Job Done!

Connecting two web parts declaratively using a file provisioning module

Posted: 31st October 2011 in Configuration, Deployment, SharePoint, Web Parts

I just like to start by saying that this post is not ground breaking. However, when I tried to do this it did take me a while to find the answer, so I thought I’d just blog to add it to the grey matter.

As I’m sure you are all aware you can provision multiple files with preconfigured web parts by using a SharePoint module’s element file and a web part page as a template, by targeting the web part zones on the web part page.

However, trying to connect these caused me a bit of problems. In the end though it was quite straight forward. And can be done by specifying the following attributes in the code snippets and the descriptions given in the table below.

WebPartConnection

<WebPartConnection ConsumerConnectionPointID="MediaSearchConsumer" ConsumerID="MediaResultsWebPart" 
                         ProviderConnectionPointID="MediaSearchProvider" ProviderID="MediaSearchWebPart" ID="MediaSearchConnector"/>

Web Part Consumer

      <AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="MiddleZone2" WebPartOrder="0" ID="MediaResultsWebPart">
        <![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<webParts>
  <webPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3">
    <metaData>
      <type name="Instalec.SharePoint.WebParts.MediaResultsWebPart.MediaResultsWebPart, Instalec.SharePoint.WebParts, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=9e5b38b443f03fff" />
      <importErrorMessage>Cannot import this Web Part.</importErrorMessage>
    </metaData>
    <data>
      <properties>
        <property name="Title" type="string">Media Search Results</property>
        <property name="Description" type="string">Web part to display the results from the media search</property>
         <property name="Hidden" type="bool">True</property>
          <property name="AllowHide" type="bool">True</property>
      </properties>
    </data>
  </webPart>
</webParts>
]]>
      </AllUsersWebPart>

Web Part Provider

    <AllUsersWebPart WebPartOrder="1" WebPartZoneID="MiddleZone" ID="MediaSearchWebPart">
            <![CDATA[<webParts>
  <webPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3">
    <metaData>
      <type name="Instalec.SharePoint.WebParts.MediaSearchWebPart.MediaSearchWebPart, Instalec.SharePoint.WebParts, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=9e5b38b443f03fff" />
      <importErrorMessage>Cannot import this Web Part.</importErrorMessage>
    </metaData>
    <data>
      <properties>
        <property name="Title" type="string">Media Search</property>
        <property name="Description" type="string">My Visual WebPart</property>
      </properties>
    </data>
  </webPart>
</webParts>
]]>
        </AllUsersWebPart>

Connection Consumer Attribute

 [ConnectionConsumer("The Search Criteria", "MediaSearchConsumer")]
        public void IMediaSearchConsumer(IMediaSearch mediaSearch)

Connection Provider

[ConnectionProvider("The Search Criteria", "MediaSearchProvider")] 
     public IMediaSearch IMediaSearchProvider()
     {
         return this; 
     }

ConsumerID	ID specified in the AllUserWebPart element as seen in the Web Part Consumer above
ConsumerConnectionPointID	The ID of the ConnectionConsumerAttribute seen above
ProviderID	ID specified in the AllUserWebPart element as seen in the Web Part Provider above
ProviderConnectionPointID	The ID of the ConnectionProviderAttribute seen above
ID	This can be any value but will not work without it

Job done… Smile

Redeploying a SharePoint solution package

Posted: 5th October 2011 in Deployment, Powershell, Sharepoint 2010

Okay, before anyone comments on the simplicity of this posting. It merely t allow me to get the script easily in the future. What’s the purpose of it? It basically retracts a solution and waits until its fully retracted, then deletes it, adds it in again and redeploys it. Not rocket science, but handy.

#Set up Web Application variable
#Only needed if solution contains Web Application scoped resources
$webApp = "http://sitetodeployto"

#Set up solution name variable
$solutionName = "solution.wsp"

#Set up solution file path variable
$filePath = "C:\Deploy51011\" + $solutionName

#Uninstall solution
#Add -WebApplication $webApp if solution contains Web Application scoped resources
Uninstall-SPSolution –Identity $solutionName –WebApplication $webApp -Confirm:$false

#set up a variable for the solution to allow access to properties
$solution = Get-SPSolution $solutionName

#Wait for solution to be uninstalled
do {Start-Sleep -s 1} while ($solution.Deployed -eq $true)

# add another couple of seconds
Start-Sleep -s 2

#Remove solution from the farm without prompting
Remove-SPSolution $solutionName -Confirm:$false

# add it back in and deploy it
Add-SPSolution –LiteralPath $filePath
Install-SPSolution –Identity $solutionName –WebApplication $webApp –GACDeployment

Hope this saves someone some time Winking smile

Component Services Disabled in Windows 2008 R2

Posted: 16th September 2011 in 2008 R2, Windows

After receiving several DCOM error in Event Viewer about permission on various object I decided to amend the Launch and Activation Permissions of the Key in question. I this case it was IIS Admin Service with the Key {A9E69610-B80D-11D0-B9B9-00A0C922E750} and IIS WAMREG admin Service with the key {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1}. However, when I tried to amend I found that all the properties were disabled as seen below

After some Google-ing, I found that there were a couple of registry keys forcing this read-only state.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\{A9E69610-B80D-11D0-B9B9-00A0C922E750}

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\{61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1}

To change this – right click on the key and choose advanced, and replace the owner as the administrators group

The once this has been done change the administrator’s permissions to full control.

Now re-launch the component service and you should now be able to edit the values

Error 27850. Unable to manage networking component. Operating system corruption may be preventing installation.

Posted: 17th August 2011 in Cisco, Network, VPN

I received the above error while trying to install Cisco’s VPN x64 client on my laptop.

After some investigation it turns out this error is caused by default value set by Windows 7 in the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\MaxNumFilters

By default, this value is set to 8 and apparently can be set to a maximum value of 14. As some of the filters were used by Virtual Box, etc. I decided to set this to the maximum, rebooted and, hey presto, it installed!!

Custom SharePoint Web Service has no WSDL or DISCO

Posted: 29th July 2011 in Sharepoint 2010, Visual Studio 2010, Web Services

One I’ve been meaning to blog for a while, but just never got round to it Surprised smile

I came across an error when Creating a Custom web service for SharePoint when trying to deploy the web service to the ISAPI folder, allowing me to access a web service through the _vti_bin of SharePoint.

When you create a web service and deploy it to a mapped folder the code behind, as expected goes into the GAC. However, there is no WSDL or DISCO file associated with the web service, so it doesn’t work.

To create a web service which deploys to the _vti_bin

Add a text file to the {SharePointRoot}\ISAPI mapped folder of your SharePoint project.
Rename your text file to <ServiceName>.asmx. Now you have the service you now need to associate it to the code behind.
Create a class and name it <ServiceName>.cs or .vb if you are that way inclined !!
Add the following attributes to your class
   [WebService(Namespace = "/sharepoint/services/")]’>http://<yourdomain>/sharepoint/services/")]
   [WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
   [System.ComponentModel.ToolboxItem(false)]
Next, return to your asmx file created in step 2 and add the following to the top of the file
<%@ WebService Language="C#" Class="<NameSpaceOfAssembly>.<NameOfServiceClass>, <NameSpaceOfAssembly>, Version=<VersionOfYourAssembly>, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=<PublicKeyOfYourAssembly>" %>
Note: If you don’t know the public key, build your project, open a Visual Studio command prompt and naviate to your debug folder. Then run the command sn –T <NameOfYourDll>.dll
Next, you need to deploy your solution to get the asmx file into the ISAPI folder and your class into the GAC.
Once deployed, navigate to the web service at <SharePointSite>_vti_bin/<PathIfAny>/<ServiceName>.asmx and you should see your service with any web method you have added.
Next, you will need to create WSDL and DISCO files to allow your to add reference to the service from a project.
For some reason you don’t seem to be able to do this from the ISAPI folder, you receive a file not found error seen below.
So, you need to copy the deployed file from the ISAPI folder to the LAYOUTS folder.
Then run the command from the Visual Studio command prompt, ran as Administrator

disco /_layouts/.asmx">http://<SiteCollectionUrl>/_layouts/<NameOfService>.asmx
Once you have successfully ran this for the instructions in the “Generating and Modifying Static Discovery and WSDL Files” section of the Creating a Custom ASP.NET Web Service page on MSDN.
Copy these newly create wsdl and disco files back into your project and redeploy.

Please note: This tedious process will have to be redone anytime you add a new web method to your service.

SharePoint, SSRS and Kerberos

Posted: 27th July 2011 in Kerberos, LINQ 2 Sharepoint, Security, Sharepoint 2010, SSRS, Web Services

Scenario: SSRS, in SharePoint integrated mode, is calling a custom web service located in the SharePoint ISAPI folder access through _vti_bin. This service is using LINQ 2 SharePoint to query multiple lists in the SharePoint WFE.

A layout of the set up can be seen below. Okay, network diagrams is not my strong point!

Because the authentication is being passed over more that 2 boundaries it looses the user and passes null and the only way to fix this is to use Kerberos.

So here’s how I went about setting it up:

Service Principal Names (SPN) for Service Accounts

In order pass the Kerberos token you need to set up SPN’s.

Note: Although I’ve not found confirmation of this SPN’s appear to be case sensitive

setspn.exe -A HTTP/<SSRS_FQDN> SSRSService
setspn.exe –A HTTP/<SSRS_NetBIOSName> SSRSService

Set the <SSRS_FQDN> to the FQDN of the server hosting the SharePoint Integrated SSRS and the <SSRS_NetBIOSName> as the Server name.

These entries can be confirmed by running

setspn.exe –L SSRSService

This should give an output similar to below.

The onto the WFE’s

setspn.exe -A HTTP/<SP_WFE_FQDN> SPService
setspn.exe -A HTTP/<SP_WFE_NetBIOSName> SPService

Set the <SP_WFE_FQDN> to either: the name of the server hosting the Sharepoint WFE or if this is an NLB cluster use the cluster name and the same goes for the <SP_WFE_NetBIOSName>

setspn.exe -A MSSQLSvc/<SQL_FQDN>:1433 SqlDbService
setspn.exe -A MSSQLSvc/<SQL_NetBIOSName>:1433 SqlDbService

Set the <SQL_FQDN> to either: the name of the server hosting SQL or if this is a cluster use the cluster name and the same goes for the <SQL_NetBIOSName>

Active Directory Users and Computers

Next, Open Active Directory Users and Computers and change each of the 3 accounts, selecting the Trust this user for delegation to any service (Kerberos Only) option on the delegation tab.

SSRS App Server Changes

On the SharePoint Application Server which is hosting SSRS Open the Local Security Policy and Go to User Management Rights. Change to “Act as a part of Operating System and “Impersonate a client after authentication” to include the users for both the WFE’s App Pool and SSRS Service Account

Report Server Configuration Changes

Open the RsReportServer.config file and locate the <AuthenticationTypes> section. Add <RSWindowsNegotiate/> as the first entry in this section.

Central Admin Changes for Web Application

Next, open Central Admin and Navigate to Application Management –> Manage Web Application

Then, select the application, then the authentication providers

In the pop-up click on the “Default” link in the Edit Authentication window scroll down to IIS Authentication Settings and choose Negotiate.

Scroll Down and Save.

Give this a minute to propagate to the other Servers in the farm and you should now be able to access the Reports which call the web service.

Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.ReportingServices.UpgradeScripts, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91′ or one of its dependencies. Access is denied.

Posted: 20th July 2011 in Configuration, Sharepoint 2010, SSRS

Came across the above error on all the reports served through SharePoint in integrated mode. Not sure why this happen, but you seem to be able to resolve it by restarting the reports service.

Go to the Reporting Services Configuration Manager ( seen in figure below), connect to the server, then stop and start the service

Checking if SharePoint Event Receivers are attached to a list using PowerShell.

Posted: 15th July 2011 in Powershell, Sharepoint 2010

After deploying several event receivers to a variety of lists I found that one of the event receivers did not seem to be working, but instead was firing a old version of the DLL.

So, to check that it was indeed attached, I ran the following PowerShell command.

$spWeb = Get-SPWeb –Identity <SharePointWebUrl>
$spList = $spWeb.Lists["List Display Name"]
$spList.EventReceivers | Select Name, Assembly, Type

After running this I discovered that one of the event receivers had been attached to the list twice! I’m not entirely sure why or how this happened, but my problem was resolved by deleting the duplicate receivers and reattaching it once.

The script is used to delete was:

$spWeb = Get-SPWeb –Identity <SharePointWebUrl>
$spList = $spWeb.Lists["List Display Name"]
$eventsCount = $spList.EventReceivers.Count
$assembly = "Company.SharePoint.Client.EventReceivers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=570c484d87a3aa61"
$class = "Company.SharePoint.Client.EventReceivers.ProvisionServiceAreaSecurityGroups.ProvisionServiceAreaSecurityGroups" $name = "ProvisionServiceAreaSecurityGroupsItemUpdating"
$type = 2
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $eventsCount; $i+=1)
{
     if ($spList.EventReceivers[$i].Assembly -eq $assembly –and
         $spList.EventReceivers[$i].Class -eq $class –and
         $spList.EventReceivers[$i].Type -eq $type –and
         $spList.EventReceivers[$i].Name -eq $Name)
         {
             $spList.EventReceivers[$i].Delete()
         }
}

$spList.Update()

And to add it was:

$spWeb = Get-SPWeb –Identity <SharePointWebUrl>
$spList = $spWeb.Lists["List Display Name"]
$spEventReceiver = $spList.EventReceivers.Add()
$spEventReceiver.Assembly = "Company.SharePoint.Client.EventReceivers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=570c484d87a3aa61"
$spEventReceiver.Class = "Company.SharePoint.Client.EventReceivers.ProvisionServiceAreaSecurityGroups.ProvisionServiceAreaSecurityGroups" $spEventReceiver.Name = "ProvisionServiceAreaSecurityGroupsItemUpdating"
$spEventReceiver.Type = 2
$spEventReceiver.SequenceNumber = 1000
$spEventReceiver.Synchronization = 0
$spEventReceiver.Update()

That’s it Winking smile

SharePoint NewForm.aspx overwriting existing data.

Posted: 14th July 2011 in Sharepoint 2010

Bizarre one this: Using SharePoint 2010’s new Modal Popup functionality a link had been created from a tab control to launch the new form for the list items associated with the tab. However, every time the form was submitted, it overwrote one of the existing records in the list. Firstly, I thought I was imagining things !!! But, it turned out that this was caused by using the ID key in the query string. I changed ID to RefID all was well.

It makes sense when you know, but it took a while to figure out why this was happening.

Lesson Learned: Don’t every use ID in the query string of a NewForm.aspx