My friend and SharePoint MVP Brendon Schwartzand I are working hard to get an online store live by end of this month!

The vision is to have an online store where other SharePoint Developers and companies can sell and promote their products.  This store will offer a turnkey solution for anyone that wishes to sell their SharePoint custom components.

Among the first products we will sell is an entirely enhanced version of the CQWPRCE WebPart currently available on CodePlex at http://cqwprce.codeplex.com/ One of the features that makes this new version of the WebPart so much more desirable is the fact that it will show the recurring rolled up events in a calendar view, just like the out of the box views!  It will also show events that span (see figure 1)

FIGURE 1 – CQWPRCE shows an event that spans across several days using an out of the box calendar view.


In addition, we will offer support for our products and professional services around SharePoint.

We both are very excited and look forward to our grand opening!

Oscar

Today I am going to show you the different built-in technologies you may take for granted, always have been curious about or simply do not know about.  My scenario in this case is building a dashboard using the SharePoint Designer 2007. 

Our end result will look something like what you see in Figure 1.  It is a DataViewWebPart created using the SharePoint Designer 2007

1. Use of Linked Data Sources in SPD 2007 to form a relationship between two SharePoint Lists (you can use this method to form a relationship with any other Data Source type)
2. Custom XSL to render the conditional image using XSL as well as importing your own XSL templates for reusability of those.

Figure 1 – The end result of our scenario shows Courses with related Tasks.   The indicator image is determined by calculating how many tasks are either past due (red) or are due within a week (yellow)

Linked Data Sources

Linked Data Sources are very powerful, on code these are called Aggregate Data Sources.  As an example you may have the following hierarchical relationship in order to display your data using XSL.

As you can see on Figure 2, each Course has many Events, and each Event has many Tasks associated with it. The Task List has a Lookup column to the Event List, and the Event List has a Lookup Column to the Courses List.  Both Course and Event Tasks are stored on the same List.

Figure 2 – shows SharePoint List relationships

In order to display this on a DataViewWebPart, here are the steps you may take:

1. Drag the Course List on to the page, modify the columns as you wish
2. Select a row on that table, right click and insert a row below (this will make room for the Events table)
3. Create a Linked Data Source called it Events and Associated Tasks, it links the Events and Tasks as the name implies.  Add the Events List and the Event Task List to this Data Source.  So now your Data Source properties should look something like Figure 3 below.
4. Create another Linked Data Source, I called it Courses and Tasks plus Event Tasks, this Data Source will contain our first Data Source, so go ahead and click on Configure Data Source button, and add the first the Events and Associated Tasks Data Source.  Now your properties should look like Figure 4
   
   Figure 3 – Event and Tasks Data Source Properties
   

Figure 4 – Shows the Courses and Tasks plus Events Task Data Source with a nested Linked Data Source (Events and Associated Tasks – an SQL Data Source)

If you view Data Source Details on the right of the Designer screen, you should see the relational data, much like what Figure 5 shows.  
 

At this point, it is easy to drag data and make it look pretty with XSL.  Your end result is what you see in Figure 1 above.

The related Data Sources could have been say an SQL Data Source linked to a SharePoint List Data Source for when you need to show related data from a database that matches your SharePoint List data.  The possibilities are endless!  You can link almost any type of Data Source such as BDC, SQL, and Web Service so long as you have a field that relates the two Data Sources.

XSL Fun!

I don’t know about you, but I enjoy the challenge of pushing the limits with XSL and XSLT, this technology is extremely versatile and powerful.  With a little work, you can create complex rendering tables that show your data in pretty much any way you want (almost all the time, there are exceptions)

On this dashboard project I previously worked on, there was a requirement to show “KPI” images based on some business rules.  Now you may ask; why not use the out of the box KPI WebParts? 

For this particular project there were many date calculations that determined the image to display.  For example, if any tasks for a given Event where past due, show red image.  For any tasks that are due in 5 days, show yellow image.

FIGURE 5 – Shows you the XSLT expressions I used



FIGURE 5 – Shows the output of my XSLT expressions shown on FIGURE 6

Reusing your own custom XSL Templates

What if you are an XSL enthusiast and over time have created some utility XSL Templates and maybe even Functions that you would like to use on a SharePoint DataFormView WebPart?

You can!  All you need to do is import the XSL file and call your Templates.  I used this technique recently to do data comparison calculations

FIGURE 7 – Shows you how to import your custom XSL templates file


FIGURE 8 – Shows how to call the custom Template and save result in a variable and hen use that variable to display my images.

 

Well, I hope you found this article useful and can make use of the information on your existing or future projects.  If you have any questions or feedback, please contact me.

Oscar

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