The Edge

Creating Reporting Services Shared Data Source in MOSS Report Centre

 

OK so you’ve created a Report Centre in Moss, configured it to use Reporting services and have the list of reports that you need to upload, what could go wrong?

 

For me it was forgetting how to create the shared Data Source (.rsds file). Not only could I not quite remember how to create it the default settings in MOSS hid the ability to create the connection. So for those of you who are in a similar situation here’s a step by step guide to creating a MOSS SSRS Share Data Source Connection.

Developing Custom, Connectable Web Parts in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 provides a rich model for developing communication between web parts.  This is useful in scenarios where you need to pass either simple string values to another web part, perhaps to display and filter custom Parent-Child data, or pass complex objects for processing and rendering.  The principle of Web Part communication is that it is contractual and interface based.

Consider a scenario where Web Part A must send a simple string value to Web Part B as shown below.  Web Part A is the provider and Web Part B is the consumer.

More than ever before, companies are using Agile to develop and deploy functional SharePoint applications - WHY?

Business Agility is running an Agile SharePoint deployment workshop on December 4th, further details and links to registration are below.

 

Business Agility and Microsoft invite you to attend a free, unique SharePoint workshop event.
 
When: Thursday, 4th December 2008.
Location: Microsoft Reading Office

 

Whether you are a new, existing or potential SharePoint user, at some point in your SharePoint journey, you may find yourself asking "What's next?". Due to the functionality and customisation available to SharePoint users, many organisations reach a point in their SharePoint project where they are unable to determine which capability to pursue next.
 
This half-day workshop will provide an overview of SharePoint best practice deployment, address "what next" scenarios and also demonstrate how real business benefits can be realised much faster by adopting an Agile development approach.   
 
Spaces are limited and will be reserved on a first come, first served basis. 

 

Reserve your FREE seat now by registering HERE or by calling +44 (0) 1462 476 160.

Configuring PerformancePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 Integration Points

Problem

After you have instructed the PerformancePoint Server 2007 Monitoring Server to use a specific MOSS 2007 Site Collection, you may find that the site collection displays a Configuration Error after you have configured the Monitoring Server as follows:

Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified

...

The reason is due to the following assembly, part of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Extensions, not being made available by default.  This is common in scenarios where you are using just .NET Framework 3.5 and have not installed AJAX extensions manually.

<add assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />

Resolution

There are a number of ways around this problem.  The first way is to install the specific AJAX extensions that are being referenced.  Another more complicated method, that may be desirable if you cannot install AJAX extensions, is to use assembly redirection to ensure that the correct version of the assembly is called using the <bindingRedirect> element in your web.config.  This presents other potential problems down the line and should be used with care.

Please note, you can only deploy Dashboard Viewer web parts to one site collection in your server farm with the current version of PerformancePoint Server 2007.  If you require multiple site collections to be integrated with PerformancePoint then this must be achieved manually through editing your web.config files.  This will result in an unsupported configuration however.

Passing Parameters to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 based Workflows

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 provides the ability to create rich, custom workflow solutions built upon the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) framework.  Workflow solutions provide a useful way to define and automate information based processes, which may or may not require human interaction at various points in the process.  This post will examine how to customise and extend customised workflows through passing parameters via association and initiation events.

A workflow association describes the process of linking a workflow to an object within SharePoint, such as a list.  A workflow initiation event occurs every time a workflow instance initiates.  Parameters passed via association are common to all workflow instances on that particular object.  Parameters pass via initiation relate only to an individual workflow instance.

MOSS provides a useful way of leveraging both workflow association and initiation, at the time they occur, to pass parameters into the workflow.  The easiest way to allow users to pass parameters into a workflow is through the implementation of Microsoft InfoPath forms.  It is possible to use ASP.NET pages to capture user input but MOSS provides out-of-the-box Web Part pages to display Infopath forms at the time the workflow is associated and initiated.  For instance, an association form could capture the location of another SharePoint repository which the workflow could use to route all pieces of content to on that particular list.  When a workflow must make ad-hoc decisions on an instance to instance basis, then initiation forms are more appropriate to parameterise workflows.

Creating Custom WebPart Pages For Microsoft SharePoint 2007

SharePoint 2007 comes with about 8 different formats of WebPart pages but you soon find that these aren't enough. You can write code to add ASP.Net pages to the FileCollection but if you are after a way of creating WebPart pages based on custom templates in the same way you create WebPart pages on built-in templates its not easy to find a solution. In the past, I have created  customised WebPart pages for SharePoint 2003 by creating customised WebPart templates and generating the actual WebPart pages from these. I leaned how to do this from this article on MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms916835.aspx. Thankfully with just a few tweaks to the solution described in this article it is possible to create custom WebPart page templates that can be used to generate custom WebPart pages in SharePoint 2007.

Follow the instructions described in the MSDN article but make the following changes. Under the section entitled 'To configure a customised Create Page ', in step 1. Copy the Custspcf.aspx page to:
Local_drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\
If you want the images of the template WebPart pages to show in the Custom WebPart creation form search open the Custspcf.aspx and search for:

var strImagePath = "images/"; '

How to use the Content Editor WebPart to add style and substance to your SharePoint pages Part 1

This is a quick solution for power users of SharePoint to spice up their Web Part pages. These tips will be particularly relevant to anyone who does not have access to the SharePoint templates and can even be used by anyone with very limited access to design their own pages, but feel a little bit constrained by the styles and templates that have been provided to them. It could possibly be used in most other Content Management systems.

If you have ever created a web part page, you will know that one of the most useful Web Parts is the content editor. It lets you write simple html, even writing most of the tags for you. It’s great for laying out your message to your page readership and setting your own style inside the box.

Sometimes however you want to play around outside the box and even with decent access rights, SharePoint is crazily complicated to configure correctly. You may have a choice of 8 Web Part Page templates to choose from, but maybe none of them offer exactly the layout you require. Also when adding multiple web parts to one zone you have no easy way of controlling how the web parts flow, either horizontally or vertically.

Even something simple like adding 2 calendar controls to one zone horizontally does not work correctly.