SharePoint Designer - Keep it up to date

Recently, I was working with SharePoint Designer and SharePoint Online for creating workflow.
After I downloaded the designer from https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=35491, I couldn't create and publish workflow.
After further analysis and troubleshooting I found that I have to install the SP1 and January 2016 KB update. The link to download those are as below -
SharePoint Designer SP1 -
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/2817441/description-of-microsoft-sharepoint-designer-2013-service-pack-1-sp1
January 2016 KB download link -
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/3114337/january-12,-2016,-update-for-sharepoint-designer-2013-kb3114337


Hope this will help someone to quickly fix the issues.

Office Dev with Agile & DevOps

Hi again,

I have been learning and practicing Agile over many years. Recently, as everyone knows DevOps is a buzz word.

What is DevOps really? How is it different than Agile? Do I have to learn something new?

These were the same questions in my mind as well.

I am primarily an Office developer and focus on SharePoint, Office 365 and Office Development. These practice sounds good when it come to .NET based projects. But rarely you will find one using in productivity projects.

I am written down my thoughts, my process ideas, my challenges and how to overcome those. You can read in details using below link.

Read my blog at ESPC here

Learning Resources

The purpose of setting this page is to find the reference links for learning or references.
I am putting them with tags so that you can find related info on this page

1. http://mso.harvard.edu/ - Office 365 leaning
2. https://uwm.edu/o365/ - Office 365 learning

GigJam - first experience

Hi All,

Recently, I played with Microsoft new tool called as 'GigJam'. It is a cool tool to bridge the systems and get the things much quicker.

It is not a screen sharing tool where you depend on bandwidth to get the screen shared. You share the canvas of application and define what section can be seen by other party and what action can a recipient can take as read/write.

I have recently presented it at Melbourne Office 365 User group and uploaded details at below location.
Feel free to browse them and leave your comments for improvement.

Slide - @SlideShare
Detailed information - @European SharePoint E-books 

Collab 365 - Summit 2016 - Select the best development approach for your case

In continuation to my talks on Office 365 Dev, I delivered a talk at Collab365 - Summit 2016. You can find more information on their home page.

My session is about how we shall compare the multiple development styles available to us and select wisely a preferred situation for development. The focus here is to deliver what will maximize the benefit to end user productivity.

Session details - https://collab365.conferencehosts.com/confs/Summit2016/c365summittrivedi/ConfPages/SessionRoom.aspx

This is available on demand and can be viewed anytime now.

A day in developer's life

I got an opportunity to present in Microsoft Australia Ignite 2015 conference. I love writing the program as being developer by passion.
I thought to utilize this opportunity and focus on the new development changes which can help developers, interns help customer to quickly deliver the solution for business problems.
I would like to take a different step and want to message out that with new tools and solution style, we can also go and build SharePoint environments also easily.

You can find the recording and presentation at this channel9 link.

My talk is also being referred by Official SharePoint twitter account. You can find the reference at this link.

What does a day in the life of a SharePoint developer look like? https://t.co/9g88GftwDk

— Microsoft SharePoint (@SharePoint) November 28, 2015

and they did it again, find link here

If you're a SharePoint developer, you will definitely relate to this Ignite Australia session. https://t.co/jX5kzPLLma

— Microsoft SharePoint (@SharePoint) November 29, 2015

Looking forward to your comments and let me know if you would like to know more about specific area.

Thank you.

Collab365 - Global Conference

Recently, I have been engaged in doing presentation in community.

In continuation, I have been selected as speaker at Collab365 - Global Conference. You can find more information on their home page.

Sharing few quick links and details below -

When it's happening - 7 & 8 Oct 2015.
Where it is? - At your desk. It is virtual, you can join from anywhere with good internet speed to catch live sessions.

Speakers - A big line of speakers including MVPs and other leaders in the technology across the world. Speaker list is available here.

Agenda - https://collab365.conferencehosts.com/sitepages/agenda.aspx

My session is about how we can bring more productivity to end user still doing the custom development. We may need to look at the different options available in Office 365 Dev and Office Dev along with SharePoint Dev.

Session details - https://collab365.conferencehosts.com/SitePages/sessionDetails.aspx?sessionid=C365060

Register now, before it is too late.

SharePoint 2016 – What is in it?

Note: the information in this blog post is based on the information presented and available on public forums. The actual product SharePoint 2016 can have difference from what is available. Please do take time to check the new features when the product is released.
The same article with updated by other community member is also available at Technet Wiki.

Past few weeks been really busy, catching up Build and Ignite conferences (virtually through channel 9). One of the session which I have been waiting was What’s new in SharePoint 2016.

After the session, I thought to pin down my thought which might be helpful for quick summary to look out for what to expect in SharePoint 2016 (release is still a year later, a lot can change).

I would love to make points which makes it easier to read rather than reading the entire paragraph.

·       Release milestones: Public beta – Q4 2015, public download – Q2 2016 and a release candidate (RC) in between.

·       The design, development and maintenance for SharePoint 2016 going to inherit from cloud DNA.

·       Focusing on content management, team collaboration, user experience across devices and how the cloud can be blended into existing on-premises scenario.

·       New and improved capabilities will be delivered focusing on

o   Improved User Experience

§  Improved mobile experience

§  Personalized insights

§  People-centric File storage and collaboration

§  Power of Office graph and Delve (via hybrid)

o   Cloud-inspired infrastructure

§  Improved performance and reliability

§  Hybrid cloud with global reach

§  Support and monitoring tools

§  Simplified user experience and integration with products like next version of Win Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server 2016.

o   Compliance and Reporting

§  New DLP

§  Enable data encryption

§  Improved Analytics and reporting

·       Microsoft taken SharePoint online, modified to suite on-premises. Components which were not available are back ported.

New information available for SharePoint 2016 can be classified in 4 categories –

1.       Management of platform

·       System requirements

o Hardware Requirements

Installation Scenario	Memory / RAM	Processor	Hard Disk
Single Server*	16-24 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB
Farm Server	12-16 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB
Database Server	Refer system requirement for 64-bit version of SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 or SQL vNext

*There is no built in SQL Server. You need to install a separate SQL Express/Developer or any other edition even for development server.

o Software Requirements

§  Any one of Windows Server 2012 R2 | Windows Server 10

§  Windows Management Framework 3.0

§  Application Server Role

§  Web Server (IIS) Role

§  Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 (in on Windows Server 10, then Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.6)

§  Update for the .NET Framework 4 (KB2898850)

§  Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Native Client

§  Microsoft Identity Extensions

§  Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)

§  Windows Server AppFabric v1.1 (MS is planning to end AppFabric, but it will be supported for SP 2013 and 2016).

§  Windows Identity Foundation v1.1

§  Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client

§  Microsoft WCF Data Services.

·       Upgrade and Migration

o Upgrade path is from 2013 to 2016

§  Upgrade 14.5 mode site to 15 mode and then upgrade

§  Allow the same database attach upgrade process

o Migrate Content to 2016 (using migration APIs or partner tools)

·       Auth N-Z

o Windows Identity over SAML claims

o Trying to normalize on oAuth/OpenID standards

·       SMTP Connection

o Allow using non-default ports

o Allowing to use STARTTLS connection encryption.

2.       Reliability, Performance and scalability

·       Moving from SharePoint 2013 based job enable / disable to predefined set of logic executing on a machine (Termed as MinRole Topology)

·       New Server Roles in SharePoint 2016

o Special Load – custom service applications, services, third party components which are outside of MinRole Topology

o Web Front End – services end user requests. Servers are optimized for low latency

o Search – service application provisioning, indexing service and other search components.

o Application – services backend jobs or requests triggered by backend jobs. Servers are optmized for high throughput

o Distributed Cache – servers distributed cache for the farm.

o Single Server Farm – for development purpose, configure (excluding SQL Server) all services on one server.

·       New Service categories in SharePoint 2016

o User Services

o Robot Services

o Caching Services

·       Server Role and Health Analyzer

·       Patching Updates

·       Improvement in boundaries and limits

o Content DB size up to TB’s (not yet identified the limit)

o 100K sites per site collection

o List view threshold > 5000 items

o Upload file size up to 10 GB and removed character restrictions

o Search scaling up to 500 M items.

·       Better File Performance

o Use BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) to better file performance

·       Fast Site Creation

o Create faster site collections at database level using the standard site template saved as site.

o Remove feature activation overhead

·       User Profile Service

o Bi-directional sync using external FIM service. No built in FIM anymore.

·       Project Server

o Still require separate Project Server Licensing, but SharePoint and Project Server content database is merged.

·       Durable Links

o New sharing URLs are resources Id based, thus renaming file, moving file will not break the link already shared.

3.       Analytics (Insights and Data)

·       Real time data analysis on various parameters

o Usage

§  daily active users

§  Weekly active users

§  Usage by browser

§  Usage by agent

§  Usage by OS

o Storage

§  Storage by site template

§  Daily storage

§  File type

§  Storage breakout

o Health Reports

o Network

o Portals

4.       Cloud Experience

·       Compliance Center

o This showcase the feasibility of bringing same compliance system to on-premises which works well in O365 with Azure RMS.

o Discover and preserve with hybrid eDiscovery.

·       Cloud Search Service Application

o This unifies the on-premises and cloud data search from one search center.

o This also add value to Office Graph / Delve to extend the presence on on-premises.

o This can also leave search running in cloud only while indexing from on-premises and online.

·       Extranet

o Making easier to maintain and publish sites to Internet.

o Using O365 Identity federation services.

·       Team Sites

o Separate the data in either on-premises or in cloud

o Follow sites, documents or people in on-premises and master the information in cloud.

o Allowing ODF files creation.

·       Scenario Picker

o Hybrid deployment automation

o Select the Hybrid configuration required and use automated and wizard driven information to setup Hybdrid (forget the lengthy procedures and PowerShell scripts to run)

SharePoint File and Folder Name validation

Here is a quick sample on how you can validate a file or folder name before creating/uploading it in SharePoint.
Scenario in which I used this code block when I am creating a folder hierarchy in SharePoint site (on-premises or online) based on a database query and migrating files.
Based on the KB 905231, there are following characters are not allowed in the file/folder name for SharePoint.

• Tilde (~)
• Number sign (#)
• Percent (%)
• Ampersand (&)
• Asterisk (*)
• Braces ({ })
• Backslash (\)
• Colon (:)
• Angle brackets (< >)
• Question mark (?)
• Slash (/)
• Plus sign (+)
• Pipe (|)
• Quotation mark (")

Along with those, you have to check below conditions also:

• You cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a file name.
• You cannot use the period character at the end of a file name.
• You cannot start a file name by using the period character.
• If you use an underscore character (_) at the beginning of a file name, the file will be a hidden file.

Extra conditions:

In addition, file names and folder names may not end with any of the following strings:

• .files
• _files
• -Dateien
• _fichiers
• _bestanden
• _file
• _archivos
• -filer
• _tiedostot
• _pliki
• _soubory
• _elemei
• _ficheiros
• _arquivos
• _dosyalar
• _datoteke
• _fitxers
• _failid
• _fails
• _bylos
• _fajlovi
• _fitxategiak

In My code block, I am not considering the extra conditions.
You can pass the required file/folder name which need to be validated to the function, and function will let you know if that is a valid name.

public static bool NameValidate(string strName)
{
bool isValidFileName = true;
var match = (new Regex("[ ~ # % & * { } : < > ? / + | \" \\\\ ]|\\.\\.|^\\.|^[_]|\\.$")).IsMatch(strName);
if (match)
{

//Invalid file name.

isValidFileName = false;

}
else
{
    //Valid file name.
}
return isValidFileName;
}

Else you can also use below options if you have to replace each occurrence of characters and fix the name –
char[] filenameChars = fileORFolderName.ToCharArray();
     foreach (char c in filenameChars)
     {
         if (!SPEncode.IsLegalCharInUrl(c))
fileORFolderName = fileORFolderName.Replace(c.ToString(), "");
     }

 In above the reg ex can be broken as:

[ ~ # % & * { } : < > ? / + | \" \\\\ ]	Any one of the chars anywhere in the name (last \\\\ represent one backslash \)
\\.\\.	. .( double Dot) consecutive dot occurring in the name
^\\.	. (Dot) at the start of name
^[_]	_(underscore) in the beginning of name
\\.$	. (Dot) at the end of name

Feel free to share your comments.

Creating SP 2010 Sites using PowerShell

We all know PowerShell is recommended command line tool for SharePoint 2010. But PowerShell does not support the same style as the UI supports.

I ran in to problem, when I was creating sites using PowerShell. After creating sites I was not able to see the default groups (Members, Visitors and Owners) for the site. But when you create site from UI, you have all those available.

I figured out that, we need to execute one more command in order to get that. The steps can be as listed below:

1. Create Site, either using New-SPSite or simple .NET style code to add site to web application $WebApp.Sites.Add(params....).

2. After that execute command as :

$CurrentWeb.CreateDefaultAssociatedGroups($PrimaryOwnerLogin,

$SecondaryOwnerLogin,

$CurrentWebTitle)

It will create the groups with the current site title for e.g. MyProjects Members.

SharePoint 2010 with search scope on managed path

I came across this while trying to restrict my search on a specific managed path. I tried a lot options and at last the tricky configuration did the work. The steps to do so can be as below:

1. Go to central admin site of your farm.

2. Navigate Application Management --> Manage Service Connections.

3. Locate Search Service Application. Select it by click it in the same row. (as usual step in SP 2010).

4. From left quick launch, navigate to scopes.

5. Create New Scope with your preferred title, description and specify your custom search result page (ex - salesresults.aspx)

6. Create rule as :

select Scope Rule Type as Web Address,

select Web address as http:/// (ex - http://myserver/sales)

select behavior as include.

7. Now go to your search center, where you have created your custom search tab.

8. Go to the result page (which is created using search results page layout) for that custom tab.

9. Edit page and locate search core results web part on bottom of page.

10. Edit the web part.

11. Expand location properties. In the Scopes text box, enter your scope name which is created in step 5 above.

12. save web part settings and save page. checkin the page and publish it.

13. when you search on this custom tab, on refiner list under site, you can only sites available under the managed path.

Done.