Below is the equivalent of the US SharePint event for Mexico :)

{the following is taken directly from Ricardo Munoz’s blog}

SharePoint by Day, SharePint by Night 22 y 23 de Abril MEXICO 2009

Luego del Segundo Simposio Latinoamericano de Sharepoint a realizarse en mexico este 23 de abril (increible ya solo faltan 10 dias) estaremos realizando una gran costumbre en estos eventos que es el sharepint by nigth en la cual estaremos compartiendo con todos los expositores del evento (entre ellos joel olsen y mis amigos Hector,Luis, Vladimir y Rodrigo) y las personas que nos quieran acompanar (estoy moviendo cielo y tierra para poder estar presente en el evento).
La idea de esta actividad Postevento es llegar a conocer un poco mas a las personas que trabajan con Sharepoint en un ambiente mas cordional y tranquilo

Just another reason why I love SharePoint…

-O.

Just in case, you have not seen this

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10248404-75.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Use this KB article to fix it http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971620

Regards,
Oscar

It was only a matter of time :)  As of now, I am fully dedicated to making SharePointAce.com grow.  We have some projects in the pipeline, but if you know of project I can assist on, please contact me.

Here is to a new start!

-O

You probably have experienced these symptoms when attempting to upload files larger than 30MB on SharePoint.  In addition to standard SharePoint settings via the Central Administration for your Web Application, you have to set the allowed on the web.config file.  What would be nice, is that when you change those settings, the web.config file also adds the section below if it does not exist.

Single File Upload via Document Library
You get a 404 page.

Single or Multiple File Upload/Copy/Paste using open with Windows Explorer
The file begins uploading but then towards the end you get the following error:

Could not find this item

This is no longer located in C:\filepath. Verify the item’s location and try again.

Multiple File Upload via Document Library
You don’t get error messages, but the file is not showing up on your doc lib

SOLUTION

Add the following code to the <configuration> section of the Web.config file:

<system.webServer>
	<security>
		<requestFiltering>
			<requestLimits maxAllowedContentLength="52428800"/>
		</requestFiltering>
	</security>
</system.webServer>

Now go crazy uploading large files into SharePoint! Your DBAs may not like you after that :)

Cheers,
Oscar

While working on an extranet for a client, we ran into a requirement that proved to be simple to implement.  The client wanted to just show a login form on the home page.  As you probably already know, when configuring a SharePoint site to use FBA you get an ugly login page by default (see FIGURE 1) not ideal since it is also difficult to spot the login link on top right corner to get to this form.

FIGURE 1 – Default login.aspx for Forms Based Authentication site

 



FIGURE 2 – Login link on top right corner of portal home page

Solution

Since MOSS is written on top of the .NET 2.0 framework, it made sense to quickly drag the Login Control to a page using SharePoint Designer 2007.  By simply configuring the MemberShipProvider, we are able to log the user in.  Of course, while I was at it, I decided it would be nice to make the login control look nicer, so I reused the login button image that comes with SharePoint :)

In addition, I made sure to configure the  VisibleWhenLoggedIn and set it to FALSE, so that it does not show up when the user is logged in.

FIGURE 3 – Custom login page with .NET 2.0 Login Control



FIGURE 4 – Configure MembershipProvider

 

There are plethora of properties that can be configured for this control.  As you can see, I also decided to redirect my users to the home.aspx page after a successful login.

Hope this helps,
Oscar

If you are able to make it, come join us! We will have a social after the event :)

I will be presenting on a specific development task that is based on my previous blog entry on using the SPGridView Control and adding a TemplateField so that you can use a control such as a checkbox!  This topic has been the most popular entry on my blog by far, and I am happy to provide more details at the SharePoint Saturday event in San Francisco on April 25th. 

My post is at http://www.sharepointace.com/Blog/post/2007/11/SPGridView---Using-a-custom-TemplateField-to-add-a-Checkbox-Column.aspx

Regards,
Oscar

It’s true, if you are the smartest super guru in SharePoint, but you do not have the business acumen to fulfill the business need, you are less than desirable…

In this economy, you cannot be a heads down developer!  You have to open your eyes, and look beyond what the technical requirement is.  This will for sure lead to success!

-O

ASSUMPTIONS

You have configured Reporting Services in Integration Mode successfully (Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies is required)

SCENARIO

You only want Managers to view Account related data you have published using reports you have built and have published said reports to a SharePoint Report Library.  The Managers all are members of a SharePoint Group, for this scenario, we can call it Company Managers (creative, huh?).  Everything else is visible to all authenticated domain users.

HOW TO ACCOMPLISH THIS

Once you have published your Reports and Report Models to your Report Library, your next step is to do the following:

1. Right click on the Model (Test) in this case, and select Manage Model Item Security.
2. On the Model Security Item screen, check the box Secure individual model items independently for this model
3. Click once on the Item you wish to secure (You can secure one more level down if you wish)
4. Select the radio button Assign permissions to the following users and groups
5. Click OK

FIGURE 1 – Shows a Report Model context menu option to manage item level security

FIGURE 2 – Shows an Individual Item selected, and how to assign a person or group to it

Running Reporting Services with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies in Integrated Mode brings powerful and rich functionality into your SharePoint Portal.  To view a list of specific features and functionality added, you read a nice article on the SharePoint Team Blog

-Oscar

One of the issues I recently ran into and wanted to share with everyone; when you use SQL 2008 (which is great by the way).  There are at least two things I am aware of that you should do:

• Ensure that you have added the new Data Provider for SQL 2008 for Excel Services to work properly under Trusted Data Providers.
• Install the SQL 2008 Client Components on all farm servers

FIGURE 1 – Shows MSOLAP.4 added for SQL 2008

After I made these configuration changes, I was able to use the OOTB SQL Analysis Services Filter WebPart, which was giving me an error “the connection timed out”.

-O

It looks like the WebPart is being used! Awesome!  As of now, 160 downloads.  Hope people are enjoying it.

Check it out here http://cqwprce.codeplex.com/

Cheers,
Oscar

Not many people actually use this built-in functionality.  But one can easily edit data in bulk using Access 2007 and create useful reports against that data using Excel 2007 or Access 2007.

Getting Started

To do this, first go to your existing Properties List, and click on Actions > Open with Access


A dialog comes asking if you would like to Link to the SharePoint List, select Link to data on the SharePoint Site, this will keep your Access 2007 database in synch (bi-directional).


Now you can add/edit/delete data offline/online. Once you are happy with your changes, you can synch back by right-click on the Properties List, select SharePoint List Options > Refresh List.


You can verify your changes took effect by simply browsing to the SharePoint List (on my test, it did in fact create my sample test record pictured below)

Happy editing!

-O

I used to use Visio 2007 for wire frames, but it was a daunting task to update those wire frames!  Now I am using Mockups by Balsamiq.com

It is quite amazing how fast you can prototype pages, basically in minutes you can have several pages mocked up.  This tool is perfect for working sessions with business users to quickly get on the same page in terms of page elements and functionality.

Just look at the difference!

FIGURE 1 – Visio 2007 page wireframe

FIGURE 2 – My Portal Home Page done in Mockups

This tool is good for prototyping the UI of any application!

O

Many times during a project, you hit a requirement to have the ability to display an org chart on your SharePoint portal, and because there are many options to do this, it is difficult to know what approach is best for your particular scenario.

Here is a quick way of developing an org chart that the business users can update themselves!  There are many options in terms of what data source you can use, such as Excel, MS Access, SQL Server or any OLEDB or ODBC data source.

For this scenario, we simply configure the Visio 2007 Org Chart to retrieve its data from a SharePoint List.  The possibilities are endless in terms of how that data gets populated into the SharePoint List as well.  For instance, you can write some code to retrieve and cleanup some data before programmatically importing it into the List.

In the end, you would have an org chart that looks something like figure 1.

FIGURE 1 – An Org Chart created in Visio 207, deployed to a SharePoint page and rendered as a PNG image

Getting Started

First, create the SharePoint List and populated it with data, it should look similar to figure 2

FIGURE 2 – A SharePoint List representing the org chart hierarchy

Notice the Reports To column, this column together with the Person Name allow Visio to build the chart appropriately.  Now it is time to fire up Visio 2007!

• In Visio, select File > New > Business > Organization Chart
• Select Data > Link Data to Shapes  a dialog box allows you to choose the data source, select a SharePoint List
• Type the site url where your lists exists and click next
• Select the appropriate list and click next

When the wizard finishes, you should be able to see the SharePoint list data on your Visio screen.  Visio brings in all the columns from the SharePoint List, but you can pick specific columns you would like to show on the shapes themselves.

Now select all the rows and drag them to the center of your page.  You should now have an org chart that looks like figure 3

FIGURE 3 – SharePoint List data imported and dragged to center of page

This does not look that appealing does it?  So, let’s make a few changes to make it look pretty.  First, you want Visio to actually connect the images and show them in a hierarchal view.  Select Shape > Re-layout Shapes this should put them in the correct order.  Now connect hem by selecting Shape > Connect Shapes

You should now have all shapes connected and in the correct order.
 

NOTE: We need to make sure that our shapes are always linked to the data source so that if we change the data, it is reflected on our shapes.  Select Data > Automatically Link.. You must link the list item ID with the Shape ID, then click Next.



Now simply publish this by saving it to a SharePoint image library and add the image to any page!

Many things can be changed, such as what fields show inside the shape. as well as the color. Remember, you have access to any field on the SharePoint List.

-Oscar

If you are looking to implement a Business Intelligence Solution, you now have yet one more incentive to use the Microsoft BI products solution stack.   You can use PerformancePoint Server 2007 at no additional cost if you are already using SharePoint in your enterprise.

SharePoint 2007 is perfect as the presentation layer for business intelligence reports created using PerformancePoint Server 2007 and PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer 2007 to author such reports.

Read more at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/01/23/microsoft-business-intelligence-strategy-update-and-sharepoint.aspx

If you are running a 64bit OS, IIS by default will be running in 32bit mode.  This will be a problem once you start going through the install process for MOSS 2007.

The command you want to run to change the mode on IIS is:

cscript DriveLetter:\inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs set w3svc/AppPools/Enable32BitAppOnWin64 0

Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis -u

Then, install and enable the .NET framework for 64bit using this command:
Framework64\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis –i

Once you do this, you should not get the message that ASP 2.0 is required and should be set to “Allow” on IIS Web Service Extensions.

-O