Remember Sammy Jankis

Hi,

Earlier today, I presented a MOSS session at the Office System User Group here in Israel. In this session, I introduced the Workflow world in MOSS and the major possibilities/implementations. There is no argument that Workflows are a key feature in SharePoint 2007 but unfortunately we see a lot of mix up about when and how to use it. The attached slides from this session cover some problematic topics that you should definitely cover before entering the WF world in MOSS:

• Fundamental Concepts and Architecture - Collaborative Processes against Transactional Processes
• WF in Office System 2007 – Architecture of Workflow Hosting with WSS
• Workflow Scenarios (OOTB Workflows) – Administrating, History Tracking & Reporting
• Share Point Designer WF support - Rule-Based "No Code" WF
• Extend via Code – Visual Studio 2005 Workflow Designer
• Workflow Authoring Tools - Compression between developing with SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio 2005

Enjoy,

Adir Ron.

Hi,

I have to admit that this post is long overdue. In the last two weeks, I came across a lot of people that wants to get down and dirty with InfoPath but don’t know how to start. It all started when I did a presentation about MOSS and displayed a very simple demo of Forms Sever. I must say the audience was blown away and it was such an easy task for InfoPath. It made me realize people need a jump start with this not-too-complicated tool. So let’s skip the long intro – this post will probably be long enough anyway – here’s a huge list I’ve compiled from various external sources about Info Path and Form Server. It contains links and referenced to material from lots of MSDN articles, HOL’s, videos and of course - other blogs.

Basic Training Labs:

Lab 1: Publishing an InfoPath 2007 Form Template to a Server Running InfoPath Forms Services
Lab 2: Deploying and Managing InfoPath 2007 Forms
Lab 3: Integrating InfoPath 2007 with the Data Connection Library
Lab 4: Enabling Digital Signatures in InfoPath 2007 Form Templates
Lab 5: Importing Word Forms into InfoPath 2007
Lab 6: Using InfoPath 2007 E-mail Forms
Lab 7: Restricting Permissions to InfoPath 2007 Forms and Form Templates
Lab 8: Using the InfoPath 2007 Object Model and Visual Studio Tools for Applications
Lab 9: Designing InfoPath 2007 Forms for Mobile Web Browsers
Lab 10: Creating and Inserting InfoPath 2007 Template Parts
Lab 11: Integrating InfoPath 2007 Forms in Web Sites Using Visual Studio
Lab 12: Using SharePoint Server Workflows with InfoPath 2007

Info Path and Forms Server 2007 Common Tasks:

How to: Submit Data as an E-mail Message
How To: Add Basic Workflow with InfoPath Roles and Rules
How To: Add SharePoint Workflow Support to an InfoPath Form
How To: Create a COM Add-in to Add Custom Features to InfoPath
Hosting the InfoPath 2007 Form Editing Environment in a Custom Web Form
Hosting InfoPath 2007 Forms in WSS v3 / MOSS 2007 Pages
Creating Browser-Enabled Forms with InfoPath 2007
How to Deploy an InfoPath 2007 Form Containing Managed Code to a Browser-Enabled WSS v3 Library
Rendering an InfoPath 2007 Form in a Web Part
InfoPath 2007, Forms Server, MOSS 2007
InfoPath Forms in Office SharePoint Server 2007
Plan Forms Services
InfoPath Forms for Workflows

Info Path and Forms Server 2007 – Advanced Info:

InfoPath 2007 Developer Reference
InfoPath 2007 XSF Schema Reference
Guide to InfoPath 2007 Developer Documentation
Hosting the InfoPath 2007 Form Editing Environment in a Custom Windows Form Application
How to: Share InfoPath 2007 Template Parts and ActiveX Controls
Improving the Performance of InfoPath 2007 Forms
Overview of the InfoPath Designer API for Integrating InfoPath 2007 into Visual Studio 2005
Pulling CRM Data into InfoPath 2007 Browser Forms
Information Rights Management - Protecting Forms
MOSS and InfoPath 2007 - IT Showcase - Facilitating effective employee reviews at Microsoft
Enterprise Solutions: A Developers Cookbook with Practical Solutions
The anatomy of a UDC file
Where do UDC files come from?
Data connections in Browser Forms
InfoPath attachment control and the InfoPath Viewer web part
Using CAML to filter an InfoPath published Boolean field (from a SharePoint list)

General Resources:

InfoPath General Overview
InfoPath team Blog
Designing Form Templates with the New Features of InfoPath
Using InfoPath E-mail Forms
InfoPath 2007 Focuses on Developers
InfoPath Developer Portal
Creating complex InfoPath controls in C#
How to do cascading dropdowns in InfoPath Forms
Template parts in InfoPath 2007
How to make picture buttons in InfoPath 2003/2007

Downloads:

InfoPath 2007 Forms Get Started
Using InfoPath 2007 Forms on a SharePoint Server 2007 Site
XPATH query tool
XML Notepad 2007

That’s it.

Dudi, Lior, Noga, Nirmod, Evgeny, Tzvika and everyone that has some mild interest in InfoPath – this post is dedicated for you. Oh, and you can probably give up on emailing me all these questions about InfoPath. Live by a simple rule - If it’s not here – it can’t be done!!!.

Bye,

Adir Ron.

Hey,

In the last few weeks, I'm hearing more and more about the subject in this post's title. I'm talking about Partners and Customers that wants to start a developing cycle with MOSS 2007 and don't know how to create a suitable Development Environment. Well, I think we can all agree on how this issue raise so many questions. For Exmaple: Should we install XP/Vista or Server 2003? Should we install a stand-alone MOSS for each developer of do we need on for testing purposes? How to keep the all of the environments synchronized?

It looks like the Redmond Microsoft team is starting to understand that there is lack of guidance in this area (unlike other Visual Studio Project types that are very documented all over MSDN) so I believe we can expect a lot more official information in this matter and not just random blog entries. Anyway, we do have some pointers to work with today, especially for the the initial process of setting up the preliminary environment. The following MSDN article provides a great step-by-step reference for creating a complete Dev Machine and contains full and official recommendations for Hardware and Software. This should get you jump started but just one official article may not be enough. Additional info with some advanced/hard-core suggestions can be found in this blog entry by JOPX. In this very comprehensive list, you can find a full set of tweaks and tools that will definitely help you in your SharePoint quest.

UPDATE: Microsoft just released a very nice article about Team-Based development and SharePoint. It contains a very helpful guide for conducting a team-environment development of MOSS 2007 sites, features and assemblies. Developers that are part of a team that works on MOSS solutions side-by-side must review it. You can find it here.

Well, that should be enough for the beginning. Nevertheless, I promise more about this pressing issue in the future…

Bye,

Adir Ron.

Hey,

I guess you've already noticed but I'm a very big fan of the MOSS Search. Yep, I think this is a key feature in MOSS and should get R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Unfortunately, just like any other Microsoft toy - it's not so perfect (and some nasty people will say "not even damm close..."). But Worry NOT! After all, we should always look on the bright side. MOSS Search is probably one of the most customizable features in SharePoint 2007 and we can usually make it much better with some minimal effort. I'm initiating today a new sub-blog that will be called "Search Hacks". The purpose of those posts will be to shed some light on the dark places of Enterprise Search and create some very cool solutions in practically no time...

The first Search Hack I'll post here will be dedicated for Scopes. In MOSS Search, Scopes are defined by a set of rules to include/exclude content from the Index repository. The rule set available in this version is actually very useful since we now can use a little thing called "Content Class". Scope rules are usually based on Content Sources or start address, however in this version - those are actually the lame possibilities of that feature. The major cool thing is that now you can base a rule on a query definition for the Content Classes in MOSS. The Out-Of-The-Box example for use of that feature is the People Scope that is just a simple Content Class definition. Take a second and think of the possibilities! For example: Define in 2 seconds a new scope that consists from Pictures or Picture Libraries objects only. You've just created a Picture Search for MOSS objects. Just like the big players in the web (Live, Google and other friends). And this is only the beginning!

The only problem is that the syntax is really a pretty messed up one. To make it a bit more easy (I promised minimal time), I'm attaching a list of all available Content Classes in MOSS. Just copy-paste and start combining and create new Scopes in your Search Center:

That's it for now. GO PLAY!

Adir Ron

Hey,

It has been a long time coming but PointFire 2007 is finally released! PointFire 2007 is a multilingual user interface and content management system for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services v3.0. Sadly, the current release only supports English/French but support for Spanish, Arabic, German, Russian and Hebrew will be available very soon. Watch here a nice Flash video of how it works.

PointFire 2007 Features

• Supports 32bit Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
  • 64bit version being released soon.
• Currently enables English-French SharePoint sites.
  • Additional language support to be released soon.
• Fast and easy to install
• Quick toggling of working language
• Simple interface for entering and linking content
• Straight forward multilingual WebPart page design
• Supports custom look & feel designs
• Adds content filtering links for Lists and WebParts
• Support for 3rd party Web Parts
• PF2K7 is a 100% server side multilingual user interface solution for MOSS 2007 and WSS v3.
• No heavy use of JavaScript on client machines.
• PF2K7 will not require alterations of existing site definitions
• PF2K7 makes no modifications to the SharePoint Database Architecture.
• All MUI functionality follows SP SDK rules and performs all tasks via the SharePoint Object Model.
• Users are no longer required to use ~’s nor any other delimiting characters to enter multilingual content.
• Multilingual Settings list added to control PointFire behaviour.
• Multilingual Translations list added to enable users to add, edit and override any interface translations.
• Ability to show/hide WebParts to/from specific languages.
• IceFire has also made the process of installing and updating PF2K7 very easy.

If you're down with that kind of solution - goto www.icefire.ca and download the developer copy.

Bye,

Adir Ron.

Hey all,

I've recently posted about the problem we have with PDF IFilters and x64 bit. In the solutions area, I've mentioned a company called Foxit that was rumored to be developing a compatible version. Guess what? THEY'RE DONE and IT'S FREE!!! 

Here's a brief from the release notes:

Foxit PDF IFilter supports following Microsoft products: Windows Indexing Service, MSN Desktop Search, Internet Information Server, SharePoint Portal Server, Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), Site Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server and all other products based on Microsoft Search technology. Foxit PDF IFilter acts as a plug-in for full-text search engines.

Step 1, the search engine go through a designate place, e.g. a file folder or a database, and indexes all documents or newly modified documents, including PDF documents, in the background and create internal data to store indexing result.

Step 2, a user specify some keyword he would like to search and the search engine answer the query immediately by looking up the indexing result and respond to the user with all the documents that contains the keyword.

During Step 1, the search engine itself doesn't understand format of a PDF document. Therefore, it looks in windows registry for an appropriate PDF IFilter and finds the Foxit PDF IFilter. Foxit PDF IFilter understand PDF format. It filters out embedded formatting and extracts text from the document and return text back to the search engine.

Key benefits:

• Integrates with existing operating systems and tools within your company
• Provides an easy solution to search within PDF documents located on local computer, local network and intranet
• Greatly increases your ability to accurately locate information
• Much smaller and faster than IFilter offered by other vendors
• Support Chinese/Japanese/Korean PDF documents

Download the x32 Bit here and Download the x64 Bit here. Please note that this installer does not register with MOSS 2007 by default. That means that after you install it, MOSS will not use it to index pdf files. This could be fixed manually with some registry tweaking:

1. After you install the Foxit, add a pdf extension in MOSS search settings
2. Open regedit, locate [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdf]
3. Change the default value to {987f8d1a-26e6-4554-b007-6b20e2680632} . (You can get this handler addin value using Citeknet ifilter explorer)
4. Cmdline: net stop osearch
5. Cmdline: net start osearch
6.  Do a full crawl.

Well, like Scooby-Doo would probably say: "I think we solved another mystery Shaggy!". Enjoy,

Adir Ron.