Work | SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

Recently I was asked to take a look at a SharePoint 2010 system that was having a few problems. Looking at the patching status it was still running SPS2010 RTM, so the 1st job was to at least get SP1 installed, then the latest CUs on top, and so the fun started…

I downloaded the appropriate service packs, and kicked off the foundation SP1 install and got the following.

The error appeared straight away, no upgrade log was written, nothing in the ULS logs and nothing in the Windows logs.

I used /? switch on the end on the Service Pack file to get the usage options.

sharepointfoundation2010sp1-kb2460058-x64-fullfile-en-us.exe /?

Next I used the log option to have a look at the output of the Service Pack install

C:\patches>sharepointfoundation2010sp1-kb2460058-x64-fullfile-en-us.exe /log:c:\
patches\sp.log

There is quite a lot of information written to the log file, but nothing that pointed to the reason of the failure, next was to extract the patch and see which patch file was causing a problem.

C:\patches>sharepointfoundation2010sp1-kb2460058-x64-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract
:c:\patches\sp

the c:\patches\sp folder now contains the extracted patch files and the EULA text file

Running the patch wsssp1-x-none.msp was giving the following error.

So the Service Pack wouldn’t install because one of the patches inside it didn’t realise that SharePoint was installed, interesting as the error I would have expected to if SharePoint wasn’t installed would have been this one…

I tried running the Config Wizard, but that didn’t help either, after checking with one of colleagues who knows all about packaging software he thought that the failing msp was probably looking for a specific registry key or value.

So I decided to try running a repair from Control Panel, to reset all the original Server settings while not effecting the content or configuration databases (this process ran for quite a long while)

Then I re-ran the Config Wizard, (which now asked about removing the server from the farm).

Finally, after all this the Service Pack would finally install.

Another day done in the world of SharePoint.

Follow @NeilKing41

Categories: Hotfix, Service Pack, SharePoint, SP2010 Tags: CU, Service Pack 1

SSRS Web Part Performance 2008 R2 vs. 2012 Initial Results #SharePoint #SP2010 #in

April 30, 2012 Giles Hamson 11 comments

On one of my client projects, we heavily use SQL Server Reporting Services in SharePoint integration mode.

The benefits in comparison to Native mode are primarily around the RS SharePoint Add-in which allows us to use query string (URL) filter web parts to pass parameters to reports and create powerful dynamic dashboards as well as using SharePoint to permission and store the reports.

There is an issue however. Performance in this mode is not amazing, as detailed here:

Now that SQL Server 2012 has gone to RTM, we can start to get a measure of how well the new web part performs and I am pleased to say that the improvements appear to be great so far…

The Scenario

SharePoint Version: 2010 SP1 – December 2011 CU with Project Server
DB Server: SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1
SSRS Version: 2008 R2 SP1
SSRS Add-in: 2012 (Denali) – RTM
Server Architecture: 1 x WFE / App Server (Virtual) + 1 x SQL Server (Virtual)

NB: All testing has been carried out on our DEV server, please always try out new software on a development / test environment first to ensure the benefits and to safe guard production from issues.

The Reports:

Table based reports rolling up Project Server and SharePoint data based on parameters provided by the end user (Cannot show due to client confidentiality I’m afraid).

The Results:

Now this is just a teaser really since we will be doing full testing on our master development environment, but for now…

Project Portfolio Table Report

Number of returns items: 17 rows
Number of parameters: 1 (Portfolio ID)

NB: All time taken in seconds using Fiddler2

As you can see, we are seeing significant time increases with the new web part and within my client we have the go ahead to carry out further testing.

#SP2010 web part rounded corners #SharePoint #PS2010 #ProjectServer #MSProject #in

April 25, 2012 Giles Hamson 7 comments

At one of my clients I was asked to document how we achieved rounded corners on web parts. So as a result, I figured a blog post about it would be useful.

Now when I first implemented this (almost 2 years ago!) as the 2010 product RTM’d, I based it on the only blog post around at the time:

http://fitandfinish.ironworks.com/2010/02/using-jquery-to-wrap-web-parts-and-achieve-the-unachievable.html

The end result looks like this:

NB: Please note that this version is slightly modified from the version supplied on the blog link above.

In my implementation I was using the jQuery version available at the time:

jQuery 1.5.1
jQuery UI 1.8.13

Although jQuery UI is not required, it is always good to have for those awesome calendar pop-ups just in case.

This may work with the newer versions of jQuery, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

Example CSS, JavaScript and rounded corner image files are provided at the bottom of the post.

So without further ado, lets go through how to achieve the rounded corners in SharePoint 2010:

What does the code actually do?

With every page refresh, the JavaScript code, determines where all the web parts on the page are and injects appropriate mark up (<DIV>) above and below each web part, ready to be styled by CSS.

Step 1. Upload your reference files

Personally I like to store all my custom files within the Style Library within SharePoint, but they can live anywhere within SharePoint as long as all users have read access to them.

So lets take a look at what we are storing.

Standard Plug-In Files:

jquery-ui-1.8.13.custom.css
jquery-1.5.1.min.js
jquery-ui-1.8.13.custom.min.js

You can download this version here:

jQuery: http://docs.jquery.com/Downloading_jQuery#Past_Releases
jQueryUI: http://jqueryui.com/download

The latest versions are available here:

Custom Files

<custom JavaScript file>.js
<custom CSS file>.css

These files are where we will implement the JavaScript and CSS code to produce the rounded corners on each web part.

Corner Image Files

The following files are used to create the rounded corner affect. To keep multi-browser support we are using this method, but you could replace them with CSS3 styling by changing the CSS code to achieve the same result.

WPBottomLeft.gif
WPBottomRight.gif
WPTopLeft.gif
WPTopRight.gif

Example files are provide below.

Step 2. Add your Master Page file references

Initially add the following references into <head> section of your Master Page, preferably just before the end tag </head>

<link type="text/css" href="/Style Library/jquery-ui-1.8.2.custom.css" 
rel="Stylesheet" />

<script src="/Style Library/jquery-1.4.2.min.js" 
type="text/javascript"></script>

<script src="/Style Library/jquery-ui-1.8.2.custom.min.js" 
type="text/javascript"></script>

Now the above references are just standard plug-ins available from the jQuery website, but we also need to add some of our own JavaScript / jQuery magic, which of course needs its own reference file.

<script src="/Style Library/<customJavaScriptFile>.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

We also need to reference a custom CSS file, so that we can associate the corner images we will be using etc…

Publishing Feature enabled?

Now if you are using the Publishing feature, you can place your custom CSS via the Site Settings interface:

Site Actions > Site Settings > Under Look and Feel – Click “Master Page”

(http://<server url>/_Layouts/ChangeSiteMasterPage.aspx)

Under the “Alternate CSS URL”, enter the URL for your custom CSS file, for example:

/style library/<customCSSFile>.css

NB: This will ensure it is the last CSS file referenced within the Master Page to allow for overrides.

Publishing Feature not-enabled?

If you you do not have the publishing feature enabled (Office 365 P1 or SharePoint Foundation 2010 for example), you can add the reference into the Master Page also.

<link type="text/css" href="/Style Library/{customCSSFile}.css" 
rel="Stylesheet" />

Step 3. Adding the code

So now that we have our JavaScript, jQuery and CSS files setup in the Master Page, we can edit out custom files with the following code:

CSS Code (customCSSFile.css)

/* Web Part Chrome Styles – START */

.wpContainer {
padding-bottom:0px !important;
}
.wpTitleBorder, .wpBorderOnly {
background-color:#fff !important;
border-left:1px solid #c6c6c5 !important;
border-right:1px solid #c6c6c5 !important;
}
.ms-WPHeader td {
background-color:#ffffff !important;
border:0 !important;
padding:0 !important;
padding-top: 3px !important;
border-bottom: 1px #CECFCE solid !important;
}
h3.ms-WPTitle {
/* color:#36424a !important; */
font-size:15px !important;
font-weight:normal !important;
margin:-3px 0 0 0px !important;
padding:0 14px 4px 4px !important;
}
h3.ms-WPTitle a {
/* color:#36424a !important; */
font-size:15px !important;
font-weight:normal !important;
}
h3.ms-WPTitle nobr {
white-space:normal !important;
}
.ms-WPHeader td div.ms-HoverCellInActive {
margin:0 !important;
*padding:0 0 2px 0 !important; /* IE <8 fix */
}
.ms-WPHeader td .ms-HoverCellInActive {
margin:0 !important;
*padding:0 0 2px 0 !important; /* IE <8 fix */
}
.ms-WPHeader td .ms-HoverCellInActive img {
margin:0 0 2px 0 !important;
*margin:0 !important; /* IE <8 fix */
}
.ms-WPHeader img.ms-HoverCellInActive { /* Firefox */
padding:0 0 2px 0 !important;
}
.ms-WPHeader td .ms-HoverCellActiveDark {
border:0 !important;
margin:0 !important;
padding:0 0 2px 0 !important;
}
td.ms-WPBorder, td.ms-WPBorderBorderOnly {
border:0 !important;
padding:0px 0px !important;
}
.ms-WPBody {
font-family:Tahoma, arial, sans-serif !important;
font-size:11px !important;
padding:0 !important;
}
.ms-WPBody td, .ms-WPBody TD DIV, .ms-WPBody TD DIV A {
font-family:Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif !important;
font-size:11px !important;
}
.wpCornersTop {
background:url('/blog/Style Library/Images/WPTopRight.gif')
 top right no-repeat !important;
height:10px !important;
padding-right:10px !important;
}
.wpCornersTop div {
background:url('/blog/Style Library/Images/WPTopLeft.gif')
 0 0 no-repeat !important;
height:10px !important;
}
.wpCornersBtm {
background:url('/blog/Style Library/Images/WPBottomRight.gif')
 bottom right no-repeat !important;
height:11px !important;
padding-right:11px !important;
}
.wpCornersBtm div {
background:url('/blog/Style Library/Images/WPBottomLeft.gif')
 0 0 no-repeat !important;
height:11px !important;
}

/* Web Part Chrome Styles - STOP */

JavaScript / jQuery Code (customJavaScriptFile.js)

function wrapWebParts() {

//Find all divs (div.ms-WPBody) with an ID beginning
//with "WebPart". All web parts have unique IDs assigned
//to them, and they begin with "WebPart". Then traverse up
//the HTML document 4 levels and add the class "wp".

  $('td[id*=MSOZoneCell_WebPart]').children("table").addClass("wp");

//For web parts with the Title and Border chrome,
//add the class "wpTitleBorder" to the element
//with class "wp".

  $(".ms-WPBorder").parents(".wp").addClass("wpTitleBorder");

//For web parts with the Border Only chrome, add the class
//"wpBorderOnly" to the element with the class "wp".

  $(".ms-WPBorderBorderOnly").parents(".wp").addClass("wpBorderOnly");

//Find all table cells that have an ID beginning with
//'"MSOZoneCell" and add the class "wpContainer".

  $("td[id^=MSOZoneCell]").addClass("wpContainer");

//For web parts with the chrome type Title and Border or Border Only,
//add containers that can be used for rounded corners and other
//treatments

  //alert($(".wpTitleBorder").length);
  $(".wpTitleBorder").before('<div class="wpCornersTop"><div></div></div>')
     .after('<div class="wpCornersBtm"><div></div></div>');

  $(".wpBorderOnly").before('<div class="wpCornersTop"><div></div></div>')
     .after('<div class="wpCornersBtm"><div></div></div>');

  $("img[src*=/_layouts/images/blank.gif]")
    .attr("style", "display: none;");

  $('div[class=wpCornersBtm]').each(function() {
    var mainWPTable = $(this).prev();
    var inlineWidthStyle = mainWPTable.attr("style");
    var realWidthSplit = "";
    var realWidth = "";

    if (inlineWidthStyle != undefined) {
      realWidthSplit = inlineWidthStyle.split(":");
       realWidth = realWidthSplit[1].toLowerCase();
       realWidth = realWidth.replace("px", "");
       realWidth = parseInt(realWidth, 10);
       realWidth = realWidth + 13;

       $(this).attr("style", "width: " + realWidth + "px");
       $(this).prev().prev().attr("style", "width: "
          + realWidth + "px");
    }

  });

}

$(document).ready(function(){
   wrapWebParts();
});

And Finally…

The end result is this:

If we break this down, the jQuery code has discovered each web part on the page, added a <div> above and below the web part and then the CSS has styled it with the supplied image files referenced in the style sheet.

The code also takes into account the chrome type being used on the web part:

This results in the following:

Chrome Type: None

Chrome Type: Title and Border

Chrome Type: Title Only

Chrome Type: Border Only

Code Downloads:

SharePoint 2010 – Rounded Corners

Categories: Work Tags: css, JavaScript, JQuery, Project Server 2010, Rounded Corners, SharePoint 2010, Web Part

Project Server – "An unknown error has occurred"

April 17, 2012 Lester Lovelock 3 comments

I recently had an issue at a client where the Project Center was failing to load and returning “An unknown error has occurred” on the page. We have seen this behaviour before and it’s usually some corrupt Project data that causes it, but I’ve never had the time to get to the bottom of the problem. Fortunately, today I had a bit more free time to investigate.

This particular issue is caused by custom fields that are linked single value (read: not multi-select) lookup tables erroneously getting multiple values assigned to them. How this occurs is as-yet unclear, but it appears to be symptomatic only in the published database – the draft and reporting databases are unaffected.

So, what’s the fix?

There are a couple of things that can be done, depending on your level of access and technical capability. Firstly, we need to identify the plans that are causing the issue. The fastest way of doing this is with a little piece of SQL code (change <Published_DB_name> to your actual Project Server published database name):

USE <Published_DB_name>
SELECT
(SELECT proj.PROJ_NAME FROM dbo.MSP_PROJECTS proj WHERE pcf.PROJ_UID = proj.PROJ_UID) as ProjectName
,(SELECT pcfv.[MD_PROP_NAME] FROM [dbo].[MSP_CUSTOM_FIELDS] pcfv WHERE pcfv.[MD_PROP_UID] = pcf.MD_PROP_UID) as CustomFieldName
,count(*)
FROM [dbo].[MSP_PROJ_CUSTOM_FIELD_VALUES] pcf
GROUP BY PROJ_UID, MD_PROP_UID
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1
ORBER BY ProjectName, CustomFieldName

(credit to Jan @ Piet Remen’s blog for the above query – http://pietremen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/project-centre-unknown-error-has.html)

This will return a list of projects, custom fields and the number of times that the custom field has been populated. If any project appears as an output of this script, you can view view the issue by taking a look at the Project Information through PWA. Affected custom fields will appear comma separated – e.g. Project Priority: Low, Low, Low, Low – where they should only appear as a single value.

The fix is quite a simple one – republish the project. This pushes the values from the draft database back to the published database and overwrites the broken custom field values. Check in PWA > Project Information, or re-run the above query to check that the plan is now fixed in the published database. I have seen a couple of instances where this did not fix the problem, and we had to delete the published version of the plan, and re-publish from the draft version.

It is still unclear how long the project will remain “fixed”, we have had a couple of plans reproduce the issue after being republished.

Microsoft have identified the issue, and released a fix, which can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2598251

This KB is also included in the roll-up package (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2597152) though it’s not documented.

These KB’s will prevent the issue occurring in the future, but will not fix existing problems – be sure to follow the above steps to ensure that the plans are fixed. As always – be sure you have database backups before applying updates!

Categories: Cumulative Update, EPM, Hotfix, Project Server, Project Server 2010, PS2010 Tags: Project Server, Project Server 2010

SPD 2010 Cannot insert this action #SP2010 #SharePoint #PS2010 #MSProject #ProjectServer #in

April 3, 2012 Giles Hamson 1 comment

Just a quick blog to go over which features should be enabled for Approval tasks in SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows.

Scenario:

Project Server – PWA. Workflow being created within a Project Site.

Features enabled at the site collection (PWA):

Standard
Enterprise
Publishing

Features enabled at the site (PWA):

Standard
Enterprise
Publishing

Features enabled at the site (Project Site):

Standard
Enterprise

However, we were getting the following error appear when trying to use the “Start Approval Workflow” action:

Cannot insert this action. To use task process actions, the Office SharePoint Server Standard Site features must be enabled for this site by an administrator.

Interesting error message given that the Standard features were enabled at both the Site Collection and Site level.

On further inspection, it turns out (rather obviously) that the Workflow feature needs to be enabled at the Site Collection level.

It caught us out for a little while, but a quick Google and thanks to this MSDN Forum post, we got the result we needed:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010customization/thread/ea9d02f3-6d30-4fa9-8284-d4d78a3a97dd

Hopefully, this post helps somebody out.

Categories: Work Tags: SharePoint Designer 2010, Workflow

SQL Server 2012 beta exams are up #SharePoint #SP2010 #ProjectServer #PS2010

March 26, 2012 Giles Hamson 1 comment

Here are CPS we are looking at our objectives for the next year and as part of this process we are looking at upcoming exams and certifications.

It would appear that 3 days ago the SQL Server 2012 exams have gone into Beta and you can try them out and provide feedback between now and April 13th.

Full details are on the link below:

http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/btl/b/weblog/archive/2012/03/22/register-for-sql-server-2012-beta-exams.aspx

Exam Overview:

Exam number

Exam 70-461: Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Exam 70-462: Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases

Exam 70-463: Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Exam 70-464: Developing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases

Exam 70-465: Designing Database Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Exam 70-466: Implementing Data Models and Reports with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Exam 70-467: Designing Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Have fun and let me know how you get on!

** UPDATE **

We have now managed to get two exams booked, 70-466 and 70-467. Be quick though, spaces are limited and are going quickly.

** UPDATE 2 **

This post covers the specialisms in more detail:

http://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2012/03/sql-server-2012-new-certification-info/

In particular, the following details are key (Quoted from the above blog):

The seven exams for SQL Server 2012 are:

Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (70-461) [BI and DP] (info) (course)
Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases (70-462) [BI and DP] (info) (course)
Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (70-463) [BI and DP] (info) (course)
Developing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases (70-464) [DP] (info) (course)
Designing Database Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (70-465) [DP] (info)
Implementing Data Models and Reports with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (70-466) [BI] (info) (course)
Designing Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (70-467) [BI] (info)

I have indicated which certification (“Business Intelligence” [BI] or “Data Platform” [DP]) each exam fits into).

So if you have the three MCITP certifications (Business Intelligence Developer, Database Administrator 2008, and Database Developer 2008) and want to get both the Business Intelligence certification and the Data Platform certification, you will need to take five of the seven exams (all but 70-461 and 70-462).

Categories: Work Tags: Beta Exams, Certification, SQL Server 2012

#MSPC12 Day Two and Three Further Sessions, Networking and Outer Space! #MSProject #ProjectServer

March 26, 2012 Giles Hamson Leave a comment

So on to the last two days of the conference…

Keynote Day Two

Initially Chris Crane discussed further how important partners are to the Microsoft Project eco-system.

Then Ludovic Hauduc, General Manager of the Project Business at Microsoft (Who has been involved with Project since 1994) discussed how he has moved from developer to his current role and how Microsoft themselves use Project, Project Server and its Portfolio Management capabilities to manage the future development of the product.

As part of his speech, he highlighted that Portfolio Management within EPM solutions was once seen as a technique for those with high project and portfolio maturity, causing an ivory tower affect. Now, however with Project Server 2010, Microsoft has successfully brought this functionality to the masses in an easy to use interface improving the maturity, focus and success of project run on the SharePoint and Project Server 2010 platform.

Other parts of the presentation discussed the ease of use connecting Microsoft Project 2010 to the cloud with Office 365. This was demonstrated to the audience…

Keynote Day 2 – Office 365 integration with Project 2010

(featuring Christophe Fiessinger as the “Geek”)

Sessions Attended

Wednesday

Beyond the Basics: Business Intelligence Reports
Take Your Project Reporting To The Next Level: Dashboards And Other Tools
Cloud Bursting Techniques with SharePoint Online

Thursday

UMT Project Essentials Pro – Effectively deploy a best practice Financial Governance framework for Project Server 2010
Building advanced Project Server workflows with Nintex Workflow for Project Server
Extending and Customizing the Project Server 2010 Timesheet to Drive Adoption and Achieve Business Results

A big thank you to all the presenters, the sessions were excellent. I will definitely be downloading them for future reference.

Evening Events

On the Wednesday evening of the conference, Microsoft and Shark Pro software fired out the Arizona Space Center for the evening Smile

My colleagues and I enjoyed the even very much, playing with all the experiments throughout the place including going into the planetarium

Overall the Project Conference was a massive success and I hope to be attending the next one!

Categories: Work Tags: Project Conference 2012

Why a picture is worth 1000 words

March 24, 2012 Neil King 5 comments

I have recently been working with a colleague on a new client implementation, putting together some options for a farm design. We came up with three different options, all with differing server layouts and SQL configurations. Trying to articulate these designs to a non technical audience can be almost as challenging as building the final solution, if you are with the client you can always sketch out your ideas on a whiteboard or flipchart, but documenting your design for a distributed audience is always a problem.

This is when Visio comes to your aid, Microsoft have some specific Visio shapes available for SharePoint and Project Server.

You can download the shapes from here http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=21480

These allow you to create your own TechNet style diagrams for SharePoint, below is an example I made earlier…

Categories: Project Server, SharePoint 2010, Work Tags: Design

Key takeaways and useful links from the #PC324 #MSPC12 integrating #SP2010 and #PS2010 presentation

March 21, 2012 Giles Hamson Leave a comment

For those who attended my presentation yesterday and of course anyone else who is interested, here are the key takeaways and further reading links from the session:

SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

Archive

#SP2010 #PS2010 Performance Links

SharePoint and fun with SP1

SSRS Web Part Performance 2008 R2 vs. 2012 Initial Results #SharePoint #SP2010 #in

#SP2010 web part rounded corners #SharePoint #PS2010 #ProjectServer #MSProject #in

Project Server – "An unknown error has occurred"

SPD 2010 Cannot insert this action #SP2010 #SharePoint #PS2010 #MSProject #ProjectServer #in

SQL Server 2012 beta exams are up #SharePoint #SP2010 #ProjectServer #PS2010

#MSPC12 Day Two and Three Further Sessions, Networking and Outer Space! #MSProject #ProjectServer

Why a picture is worth 1000 words

Key takeaways and useful links from the #PC324 #MSPC12 integrating #SP2010 and #PS2010 presentation

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