As God Is My Wintness…I Thought Turkeys Could Fly!
Windows PowerShell Command Builder
Here’s a handy site I just stumbled across.
Enjoy,
Tim
SharePoint 2010 Web Analytics ‘No Data Available’
I am running into an issue with Web Analytics.
I have a WFE (domain name and IP point to this) and an App Server (Central Admin, reporting Services, etc). When I would go to ‘…_layouts/WebAnalytics/Report.aspx’ and look at top users or pages I would get the no data available message. But when I would look at storage or Site Count I see data.
I came across this:
Its recommended when using a multiple server farm to start these service on multiple servers.
I went to Manage Services on the Server, switched the view to my WFE, noticed the services were Stopped. I started them so now they are running on all server in my Farm. We only had the services running on the App Server. I had a large consulting firm assisting on the installation and trusted the installation scripts they provided took this into account.
I think this is the fix. I’ll update this post tomorrow.
…
update 10/28/11
No Luck. I put a call into MSDN support. I think my eyes are getting crosses trying to figure this out. I know it’s going to end up being a stupid check box or a permission thing. I’ll update this when I get this fixed.
—-
update 11/10/2011
Still, no luck! I have been working with MS Support on this issue and tried have things from deleting/recreating the service and changing the service account and permissions on the SQL DBs. I have to say, I am very confused. I’ll be talking to MS Support later today and will provide another update with my findings.
On the positive side they have been able to replicate the issue. (makes me feel better knowing this is not ‘just me’)
Side note…
MS Support has been very helpful though this process. Actually, I have had a great experience with them every time I have needed to use them. I have had a couple issues over the past 12 months that have popped up and required me to use a support ticket from my MSDN or Select/EA. Knowing I would be routed to India, I was a little hesitant at first. Accents, language barriers, phone signal delays, all can make communications a challenge. I am more than happy to say I have been extremely satisfied with the reps who assigned to my cases and their assistance working through the various issues. I can’t say the same about Office 365 Support, but that will be a post for another day.
update 11/10/2011 (b)
Just to make sure I had this working in the first place, I took a look at my Dev farms. They are a one server farm (not Standalone) connected to a SQL server. And, even though I haven’t used them since the first few days after installation, I see data, charts, usage; everything I am supposed to see. I am even more confused, but it’s good to know I do know how to set it up. Also, I guess this tells me there is something missing for my multi-server farms.
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update 11/22/11
No news yet. MS Support is still working the ticket.
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update 12/19/2011
The holidays are here, and it’s making it a challenge to coordinate with Microsoft. Still no resolution. MS Support and I have been playing phone tag.
Stay tuned.
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update 01/05/2012
Nothing new. I have been esclated to the next level of MS Support, but still no progress.
Stay tuned (I know I am!)
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Using Web Analytics
by Leon Lennaerts
original link http://www.lennaerts.com/?p=26
When you want to run a Web Analytics report you will receive
the following error:
There is no data available for this report. Here are some possible reasons: (1) Web Analytics has not been enabled long enough to generate data; (2) There is insufficient data to generate this report; (3) Data logging required for this report might not be enabled; (4) Data aggregation might not be enabled at the level required for this report.
In order to view a report you will have to install the Web Analytics Service Application. The next steps will describe how to install the Web Analytics Service Application in a multiple server farm (with 2 farms). The Web Analytics Service Application will be installed on the backend farm.
- Go to the Central Administration à Application Management à Manage Service Applications
- Click within the Ribbon on New à Web Analytics Service Application
- Provide a name for the Service Application and create a new app pool or use an existing (I recommend to use one Application pool for several Service Applications)
- Provide a unique name for the Web Analytics, Staging and Reporting Database
- After you have created the Service Application you will have to start two services for populating the data. Go to Central
Administration -> Application Management -> Manage service on server . Start the following two services:
- Web Analytics Data Processing Service
- Web Analytics Web Service
Its recommended when using a multiple server farm to start these service on multiple servers.
After you have performed these steps you can use the Web Analytics reporting. It can take one day before you can view any results. This because the data has to be populated.
Configuring incoming email in SharePoint 2010 with Exchange
Incoming email for SharePoint is a very handy tool. This is about the best post I have seen out there that covers all the major points.
You probably want to have this turned on as well so you can launch a workflow.
https://timreemtsma.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/sharepoint-2010-start-a-workflow-from-an-inbound-email/
Enjoy!
Tim
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Configuring incoming email in SharePoint 2010 with Exchange – Step by Step Guide
Posted by George Khalil on May 18th, 2010
http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/configuring-incoming-email-sharepoint-2010/
Today we continue down our journey in setting up our SharePoint 2010 farm, with the focus on configuring incoming email for SharePoint 2010. When SharePoint 2007 was released, there was a lot of discussion and rumors around Exchange 2007 being the last version of Exchange to provide Public Folder support, and that SharePoint 2007 was going to be it’s alternative. Microsoft quickly changed its stance and continues to support Public folders in Exchange 2010. However, there still might be a number of compelling reasons why you would want to consider storing incoming email messages in SharePoint 2010 document libraries, instead of public folders. You can read more about the benefits of using email-enabled SharePoint libraries in one of my article’s here.
In today’s post, I will provide you with a comprehensive step by step guide in configuring your SharePoint 2010 server in conjunction with Exchange 2010, to provide successful delivery of incoming email directly to your SharePoint Web Applications.
The environment
This article builds on the SharePoint Farm setup that I have documented here. It consists of the following servers which would form a common basis in most large organizations.
- Windows 2008 R2 server running Active Directory Domain Services
- Windows 2008 R2 server running SQL 2008 R2
- Windows 2008 R2 server running SharePoint 2010 RTM
- Windows 2008 R2 server running Exchange 2010 RTM
- Windows 7 client running Office 2010 RTM
The SMTP service
SharePoint 2010 is reliant on the SMTP service which is a Windows 2008 feature and we must install this on our SharePoint 2010 front-end web server.
Navigate to your Start Menu / Administrative Tools / Server Manager. Click on the Features node and select Add Feature. Scroll down and select SMTP Server and click on Add Required Role Services.
Click Next, Next and Install.
Click Close
We now need to install the II 6.0 Management Tools on our Windows 2008 R2 server in order to configure our SMTP service. If IIS 6.0 Manager is not already installed you must do so via, Start / Administrative Tools / Server Manager. Click on the Roles node and select Role / Add Role Services. Then select Management Tools and IIS 6 Management compatibility. Click Install.
We can now launch the IIS 6 Manager via Start / Administrative Tools.
Right click on SMTP Virtual Server #1 and select properties.
Under the General tab, I have enabled logging and encourage doing so at the start in the event we need to do some troubleshooting. You can turn logging off after successful testing.
Click on the next tab, “Access”.
Click on “Authentication” and ensure that Anonymous access is selected.
Next, click on “Connection” and ensure “All except the list below” is selected.
Finally, click on “Relay”, and ensure that “Only the list below” is selected and that “Allow all computers which successfully authenticate to relay, regardless of the list above” is also checked.
Now click on the Messages Tab and make any necessary adjustments that you see fit, such as potentially increasing the message size to allow for the delivery of larger emails with attachments into your SharePoint Libraries and Lists.
Next click on the Delivery Tab in which I normally leave all the defaults in place.
We can skip the LDAP routing tab as there are no settings required to be configured in this area.
Lastly, the Security tab should list the default permissions as per the below. No changes are necessary in this area.
We next journey into the “Domains” are within IIS 6 Manager and a domain name should be listed, which by default is the fully qualified domain name of the machine.
Right click on the Domain Name and select properties and take note of the Drop directory.
Finally, we now just need to confirm that our SMTP service is set to start automatically in the event the server is restarted. I can tell you now that the service is by default set to Manual.
Venture into Start / Administrative Tools / Services.
Scroll down your list of services and ensure that the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is set to Start-up type, Automatic.
We have now completed the configuration of our SMTP service on our SharePoint Server.
Exchange 2007/2010 Connectors
Part two of the implementation of configuring incoming email in SharePoint is to configure our connectors in Microsoft Exchange. Now even though this is not a requirement, most organisations running SharePoint 2010 or 2007 will also be running a recent version of Microsoft Exchange, hopefully either 2007 or 2010. Exchange 2010 or 2007 will provide you with that extra layer of protection ensuring that all the necessary message hygiene has been performed via its inbuilt Anti Spam Agents on the Edge or Hub Transport Server in conjunction with some form of email antivirus such as Microsoft’s Forefront for Exchange, before the message is delivered to the SharePoint 2010 List or Library.
My instructions and screen captures below are from an Exchange 2010 server which are pretty much identical and applicable to Exchange 2007.
Let’s begin by launching the Exchange Management Console / Organization Configuration / Hub Transport.
Click on Send Connectors / Actions / New Send Connector.
Type in a descriptive name for your Send Connector and then select Internal as the type.
Click Add and enter the Address space as the fully qualified domain name of the server where the SMTP service is installed (i.e. your SharePoint Server)
Click Next
Enter the IP address of the server which also hosts the SMTP service.
Click Next
Select “None” as your smart host authentication settings
Click Next
Ensure your Hub Transport Server has been added.
Click Next
Click New and then click Finish
The end result will be that the Send connector will route email to the SMTP service sitting on our SharePoint Server.
The Directory Management Service
SharePoint 2010 allows you to leverage Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) so that contacts that are created when you email enable document libraries or lists are stored in a designated Organizational Unit within your AD DS infrastructure. So why would you want to enable Directory Management Service? Purely for the fact that by storing these contacts in AD, you are allowing your users to locate email enabled libraries and lists easily from within their Outlook Address book.
Let’s begin by creating an Organizational Unit in Active Directory.
From your Active Directory server, click Start / Administrative Tools / Active Directory Users and Computers.
Right click on your domain object and select New / Organizational Unit
Type in a descriptive name
Click Ok.
The next step is imperative and very important that we get this right. I have seen on many occasions where incorrect permissions were applied and all sorts of problems were encountered when libraries or list were email enabled.
In summary, we need to provide our Central Administration Application pool identity account specific permissions to our recently created Organizational Unit to be used for creating and deleting contacts for our SharePoint 2010 libraries and lists when they are either email enabled or email disabled.
Right click on the recently created Organizational Unit and click on Delegate Control. This will invoke the Delegation of Control Wizard.
Click Next.
We will now add the Central Administration application pool account which you can confirm from IIS Manager as per the below screen capture.
Add the necessary Account.
Click Next.
Click Create a custom task to delegate.
Click Next
Click “This folder, existing objects in this folder, and creation of new objects in this folder’.
Click Next
Click on Create All Child Objects and Delete All Child Objects.
Click Finish.
Before we finish off our configuration of AD DS and the Directory Management Service we need to provide our Central Administration application pool account with Delete Subtree permissions.
We need to ensure that “Advanced Features” from within Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) is active before we venture into the security tab of our SharePoint organizational unit. If you do not enable Advanced Features, the security tab will not be visible.
From within ADUC, click on View and select Advanced Features.
Right click on our SharePoint 2010 Organizational Unit and select Properties.
Click on the Security Tab / Advanced /and Edit the CA Application Pool Identity Account.
Select Allow for “Delete Subtree”
Click on OK and Apply.
After assigning these permissions, you must run IISRESET on your SharePoint server.
Configuring Incoming e-mail settings in Central Administration
Navigate to Central Administration / System Settings / Configure incoming e-mail settings.
Select Yes to “Enable site on this server to receive e-mail”
Select “Automatic” for Setting mode.
Select “Yes” to use the SharePoint Directory Management Service to create distributions groups and contacts.
Enter your Active Directory container details, i.e. the Organizational Unit container that we created specifically for our SharePoint 2010 contacts.
Ensure that your SMTP server details are correct, this should be the fully qualified domain name of your SMTP service that was installed on your SharePoint Server.
Finally, ensure “Accept mail from all e-mail servers” is selected.
Click OK.
Please note that this process will configure the necessary permissions on the email drop folder listed in IIS 6 Manager. In summary, the following permissions are added;
WSS_Admin_WPG – Full Control and
WSS_WPG – Read & Execute / List folder Contents / Read
Ensure that these accounts are added successfully and on the rare occasion in which it isn’t, you will need to add them manually.
Testing the configuration
From within any document library or list, click on Library / Library Settings.
Click on Incoming e-mail settings.
Select “Yes” to allow this document library to receive e-mail.
Select your email attachment options and ensure that Save original e-mail is set to Yes.
Lastly, ensure that you Accept e-mail messages from any sender is selected.
Click OK.
This is your first step to ensure that all of the above configuration is in place. If you do receive an error, it’s most likely going to be permissions related against your Organizational Unit, i.e. SharePoint may not have the privilege to add the contact in Active Directory.
Let’s navigate back to ADUC and confirm that our “testing” contact is created under the SharePoint 2010 Contacts Organizational Unit.
Let’s next navigate to our Exchange 2010 server and ensure it is also listed there with an SMTP address against it.
Launch your Microsoft Exchange Management console and navigate to Recipient Configuration / Mail contact.
Right click on the Contact and select Properties / E-Mail Addresses.
Ensure that both an internal and external routable email address is listed.
From your favorite email client, send a test email to the document libraries’ external SMTP address.
Navigate to your recently email enabled document library and hopefully after a couple of minutes (SharePoint Job timer service delay) you should have received your test email.
Well! That’s all that is to it, from start to finish. Apart from sending a test email, there are a couple of other scenarios that you should test to ensure complete seamless integration with the SharePoint 2010 Directory Management Service. Within the same document library, modify the email address to something different and ensure that this change also flows through to Active Directory. You should also try disabling incoming email from that same library and ensure that the contact is completely removed from Active Directory. If you pass all of these tests scenarios, then we are comfortable in knowing that the correct delegation was provided to our Central Administration Pool Account against our SharePoint Contacts Organizational Unit.
I hope you have found this step by step guide in configuring incoming email in SharePoint 2010 with Exchange useful, so stay tuned as we continue our journey in configuring our SharePoint 2010 Farm.
SharePoint 2010 – Clearing the Configuration Cache
I have had a couple issues come up that, like a browser, clearing the cache seems to have been the trick.
Here is an article I found with some good instructions on how to do this for yoru SharePoint 2010 Farm.
Enjoy,
Tim
————
James WaymireThere were many common issues that could occur in WSS v3 and MOSS that would require you to clear the configuration cache on your servers. While less common, these issues can still turn up occasionally on SharePoint Server 2010 (And Foundation). While the resolution for these issues might be the same, the steps are a bit different. The main thing to note is that the Configuration Cache is located in a different directory on Windows Server 2008 then it was in Windows Server 2003. The new path for the Configuration Cache under Windows Server 2008 is: %SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\The overall steps remain largely the same:
- Stop the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:
- Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
- Right-click SharePoint 2010 Timer, and then click Stop.
- Close the Services console.
- On the computer that is running Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and on which the Central Administration site is hosted, click Start, click Run, type explorer, and then press ENTER.
- In Windows Explorer, locate and then double-click the following folder:
- %SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID
- Notes
- The %SystemDrive% system variable specifies the letter of the drive on which Windows is installed. By default, Windows is installed on drive C.
- The GUID placeholder specifies the GUID folder. There may be more than one of these.
- The ProgramData folder may be hidden. To view the hidden folder, follow these steps:
- On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
- Click the View tab.
- In the Advanced settings list, click Show hidden files and folders under Hidden files and folders, and then click OK.
- You can also simply type this directly in the path if you do not want to show hidden files and folders.
- Back up the Cache.ini file. (Make a copy of it. DO NOT DELETE THIS FILE, Only the XML files in the next step)
- Delete all the XML configuration files in the GUID folder (DO NOTE DELETE THE FOLDER). Do this so that you can verify that the GUID folders content is replaced by new XML configuration files when the cache is rebuilt.
Note When you empty the configuration cache in the GUID folder, make sure that you do NOT delete the GUID folder and the Cache.ini file that is located in the GUID folder. - Double-click the Cache.ini file.
- On the Edit menu, click Select All.
- On the Edit menu, click Delete.
- Type 1, and then click Save on the File menu. (Basically when you are done, the only text in the config.ini file should be the number 1)
- On the File menu, click Exit.
- Start the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:
- Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
- Right-click SharePoint 2010 Timer, and then click Start.
- Close the Services console.
- Note The file system cache is re-created after you perform this procedure. Make sure that you perform this procedure on all servers in the server farm.
- Make sure that the Cache.ini file in the GUID folder now contains its previous value. For example, make sure that the value of the Cache.ini file is not 1.
- Check in the GUID folder to make sure that the xml files are repopulating. This may take a bit of time.
Original Link:
SharePoint 2010 – Start a workflow from an inbound email
SharePoint 2010 – We were having an issue starting a workflow when a document was emailed to a Library.
Here is what was happening:
A csv file, which would be named: file_xxxxx.csv
I have the workflow set to run when an item in the library is created. If I upload a file to the library, the workflow runs immediately. If I email the file, SP correctly saves the attachment, but the wf does not start.
I havnt found the PowerShell command, but here is the STSADM commands
To check for the property
stsadm -o getproperty -pn declarativeworkflowautostartonemailenabled
You should see the Property Value exists and the Value=false
Run this to set the value to true.
stsadm -o setproperty -pn declarativeworkflowautostartonemailenabled -pv true
See:
Fun with PowerShell and SharePoint 2010
Here is a how to set up your servers so you can remote into your Farm
Thanks Microsoft Blog
Enjoy,
Tim
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PowerShell Remoting for SharePoint
Well, well, well, if it isn’t our friend the double-hop authentication problem again rearing its ugly head when trying to use PowerShell remoting technologies to manage a SharePoint farm…
So you’ve run Set-WSManQuickConfig and/or Enable-PSRemoting on your server, you’ve entered an interactive shell from the client into that server, loaded the SharePoint Snapin however you will (e.g. Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell), and you receive an error:
Cannot access the local farm. Verify that the local farm is properly configured, currently available, and that you have the appropriate permissions to access the database before trying again.
What’s happening is that you have presented your credentials and authenticated with the WSMan service running on the SharePoint server; the WSMan service must then authenticate *as you* to the SharePoint objects running on the server to retrieve data from the databases. And of course, by default it cannot, since it is not you and hasn’t been granted the rights to delegate your credentials.
The only working solution for this (see below on a logical solution which I haven’t yet figured out how to work) is to enable CredSSP for use when connecting to the remote PowerShell session. The Credentials Security Support Provider, or CredSSP, was created to allow users to securely send their credentials (e.g. username and password) to a service to use for authentication on their behalf to other services (Sound familiar? This is another solution for the double-hop authentication problem). Behind the scenes, CredSSP sets up a TLS session for encryption (though not for authentication) and uses SPNEGO (Kerberos or NTLM) for mutual authentication. Once mutual authentication has been achieved, the client sends the user’s credentials to the server over the encrypted TLS tunnel. With CredSSP, the client actually sends the username and password for the service’s further use (sure to make your security folks thrilled, but forewarned is forearmed).
The CredSSP authentication mechanism for WSMan (and PSRemoting) must be enabled on the server and client. In addition, the client has to be properly configured with the servers it can trust for delegation of credentials. It pays to consider again what CredSSP does – it allows the client to pass a username and password to the service for further use, so proceed cautiously.
Unforunately, in my experience the –DelegateComputer switch hasn’t worked to automatically add the trusted computers to the registry setting where they belong, so they must be set manually (using PowerShell perhaps) or via a Group Policy setting (see below).
To sum up, here are the commands to run on the server:
|
Enable-PSRemoting -Force
Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role Server -Force |
And on the client:
|
Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role Client -DelegateComputer * -Force
Set-ItemProperty HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\Credssp\PolicyDefaults\AllowFreshCredentials ` -Name WSMan -Value WSMAN/* Set-ItemProperty HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\Credssp\PolicyDefaults\AllowFreshCredentialsDomain ` -Name WSMan -Value WSMAN/* |
Note that the registry edit contained here allows delegation of credentials to any and all WSMan instances – which is not a security best practice. I’d recommend configuring the WSMAN SPNs for specific servers (e.g. WSMAN/server01.domain.local) or at least for specific domains (e.g. WSMAN/*.sub.domain.local). Alternatively, you can also use local (gpedit.msc) or domain (gpmc.msc) GPOs to configure this – the setting is at
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Credentials Delegation > Allow Delegating Fresh Credentials.
Add SPNs (in the format WSMAN/computer.domain) to the list available in that setting. I’d recommend leaving it set to concatenate with the local server defaults.
Once the server and client have been configured properly, enter the remote session from the client, explicitly indicating the –Authentication and –Credential parameter:
|
Enter-PSSession server05 -Authentication CredSSP -Credential DOMAIN\username
|
Another unfortunate point here is that you’ll need to explicitly give a credential – you can pass a username for the –Credential parameter as shown and you’ll be prompted for your password. Alternatively, use Get-Credential and store the credential in a variable to pass for the –Credential parameter. This is a by-design limitation on the CredSSP provider.
At this point, you should be able to load the SharePoint snapin (Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell) and be on your way. Note that by default PowerShell only allows members of the server’s BUILTIN\Administrators group to connect remotely. If other users need this access you will need to modify your PSSessionConfigurations (or create new ones) – but that’s a topic for another day.
One more thing before we wrap: The WSMan service creates its own SPN on the computer account for the computer on which it runs, and logically it would seem you could trust that computer account for delegation (e.g. via ADU&C) and use Kerberos authentication to connect to a remote PowerShell session on that server. The service should then be able to use Kerberos mechanisms to get and use delegated credentials. However, I haven’t been able to make this work. If you have please let me know and I’ll update this post accordingly.
original link
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/besidethepoint/archive/2010/05/26/powershell-remoting-for-sharepoint.aspx
Tips for creating a usable Collaboration Site
I came across this article and thought it had some good ideas.
Thank you “EndUserSharePoint.com”
Enjoy,
Tim
12 Tips for Creating a “Collaboration Café” in SharePoint
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1/16/2009
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Create a Collaboration Café for your SharePoint User Community
Let me tell you a secret about your user community: they may be intimidated by you. “Not true”, you say. “Yes…it’s true!” Why might they be intimidated by you? Because of your extreme knowledge of SharePoint and because of an affliction you (and I) both suffer from….something called ‘expertitis’ (x-pert-i-tis). ‘Expertitis’ is ‘the inability of a knowledgeable IT professional to think like an end user’. This MAY be getting in the way of your users adopting SharePoint in your environment. When people don’t feel comfortable asking you questions, they will either find some other, less knowledgeable, person to ask or they might not ask their question at all. If they choose not to ask their question they will be contributing to SharePoint’s demise…something you definitely want to avoid. One of the best ways to support your users is to build and nurture a community of learning where users teach one another. In short, you should consider creating a Collaboration Café that allows people to share their success stories with one another as well as learn SharePoint from the SharePoint expert (yes….that’s you).
The Collaboration Café Vibe
What does a good Café feel like to you? To me, a good Café is an easy-going and relaxed environment, a place for friends, well appointed with comfortable chairs, plenty of electrical outlets, easy access to high-end caffeinated beverages and music that offers just the right mixture of Smooth Jazz (Brian Culbertson).
That’s the feeling that you want to convey in your Collaboration Café. The site should say: “Welcome, browse around a bit. I hope that you find something you like. You know what you’re looking for better than I do, but if I can help you find something please let me know.” The best Cafés cater to their clientele, making certain they come back often to become part of a community.
What’s in it for You?
The Collaboration Café not only helps your user community education and communicate with one another…it offers you, the SharePoint Professional, several benefits:
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As users add items to the site you can easily comb the information to determine what focused training would be most beneficial to them. Targeted training ALWAYS drives greater user adoption. Within the walls of the Café, you will find a treasure trove of information to act upon.
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The Café will allow you to more easily see the impact of the training materials you offer. With a simple stroll through the Café, you will be able to see whether the level of knowledge sharing increases or remains the same after training has been provided. Training not only helps people solve their challenges, it raises the level of discourse within the Café.
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You can easily determine who is providing their knowledge on the site so that you can identify users that might benefit the collaboration team. Identify these people and put them on a mission to share their knowledge and insight or, better yet, bring them onto the collaboration team.
What Components Make a Great Collaboration Café?
As far as what you should place in your Collaboration Café, I recommend videos (LOTS of videos), how-to articles, tips, tricks, interviews, podcasts (SharePoint Podcasting Kit), well-formed thoughts about how departments are using SharePoint and support information to help them when they get stuck. Let’s conceptualize your Collaboration Café:
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Have an announcements area. Make the announcements short and sweet and include PICTURES in the announcement. Web sites are visual mediums so don’t just present text! Shrink some pictures and place them in each of the announcement postings. Carefully guard what’s presented in the announcements area so that only pertinent information is shown. Limit the maximum number of announcements to display at any one time to 3.
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Discuss unique content with your training department, your marketing department and the people responsible for supporting your end users. What’s that, you say? You ARE the training, marketing and support departments? Well, sounds like you have a lot of work to do to keep your user community whistling a happy SharePoint tune. Seriously, one person simply CANNOT produce all of the information that your user community will desire to consume. Get some help from a trusted colleague that can contribute their own unique view of collaboration or that can review the information you are producing. Identify topics, assign them to people to write about and get the site going with some actionable information people can use.
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Focus on the ‘findability’ of your information. Create some SharePoint tips and tricks and categorize them by function, by level of effort and by topic. Categorizing information that’s housed on your site makes it easier for people to click on areas that might be new to them, helping them to learn something new (ahh…the power of hyperlinks!)
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Talk with your CEO and ask them to write an article or sit for a recorded interview you can podcast and post to the site (General Podcasting format). Make the CEO’s interview available ONLY on the Collaboration Café so people must visit the site to listen to it. What will the CEO talk about? Have them talk about the business value behind collaboration, their hopes for the coming year and how they hope that people will use SharePoint. Presenting this information on the Café gives the Café Cache (I worked hard on that one), communicating that the CEO supports the collaboration platform and is keeping a watchful eye on those that enhance their area of the business using SharePoint.
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Brand the site in a unique way with regards to its user interface (UI) and focus on making the site a case study on the effective use of SharePoint web parts and branding. UI has A LOT to do with system acceptance, and while master page modification and creation is best left to a designer with master page skills, you can make small changes here and there on the page that will allow your users to see that your collaboration site is unique and different from a run-of-the-mill SharePoint site. Don’t be afraid to channel your inner designer….or visit Pixelmill to get some great ideas for your site’s look and feel (http://www.pixelmill.com).
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Use Camtasia to create videos that you can share with your users. I produce videos using the Flash format, which creates an HTML page that encapsulates the flash video (if this sounds overly technical to you, don’t despair. I simply click on the FLASH menu option in Camtasia and the software does the rest). I then store both the flash video file and the HTML page in a SharePoint document library, categorize the HTML pages as ‘HTML’ using a ‘Category’ list column and build a view of the Doc Library that shows only the list entries categorized as ‘HTML’ (making it the default view). This allows my users to click on the HTML pages in the document library and have the flash video begin to play. If you don’t have Camtasia or the money to purchase it, don’t despair. Pick up the free screen capture software at the awesome Microsoft Office Labs Community Clips site OR download Camtasia 3.0 for free, get an unlock code from them and then pay to upgrade to the latest version of the Camtasia software. Doing this gets you the most recent version of Camtasia for around $150! It’s perfectly legal and an incredible cost savings over buying the software directly.
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In your network’s internal DNS server, have your network administrator setup a unique URL for your SharePoint support site. Make certain it’s short, easy to remember and consider having the URL wording reflect your Collaboration Cafés brand. Branding helps you to inject some personality into the site, making it less business focused and more personal and accessible. Something as simple as sharepoint.mycompany.com will significantly increase the site’s uptake with your user community. Remember the KISS principle.
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Make the navigation of your Collaboration Café very shallow; allowing the majority of the information the site contains to be easily accessible from the main page of the site. Highlight the information on the front page of your collaboration site using graphics (MS Clip Art) in a content editor web part (with hyperlink) that points people to all the great content you are creating.
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Provide FAQ’s in a SharePoint Wiki for SharePoint’s capabilities and its supporting technologies, such as SharePoint Designer and InfoPath. The FAQ should cover some of the ‘how’ of using SharePoint, but make certain to also include some of the ‘why’. Explain how SharePoint can make a difference in a department or, better yet, include case studies of SharePoint successes from other areas of your business. Success stories go a long way to explaining SharePoint’s capabilities to the uninitiated. People want to understand just how far they can push SharePoint in their business area and it’s your job to help them understand how far it can stretch.
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Are you providing in-house classes or videos for the user community focused on their needs? If not, you should consider doing so. The Collaboration Café is a great place to offer the class schedule, a description of what the training will cover and the intended audience. Tell the users what they will be able to DO after they complete the training class. People are attracted to the outcome of training classes, not the process that gets them to a specific level of knowledge.
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Build a Wiki that allows individuals to showcase their successes and thoughts around the collaboration capability within their business unit. Select one showcase a month and highlight the players that made it possible. Interview and make an audio recording of the people involved and find out WHY they created the solution as they did. HOW they did it can be provided in a screen shot or short video but WHY they did it in a particular way is what people are really interested in (ok, they are interested in the HOW as well, but make the full solution the focus of your showcase).
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Add an RSS web part to your site and place the following link within it. This link aggregates SharePoint Blog postings into a single feed and will ensure that there will always be new content about SharePoint to read in your Collaboration Café. (http://www.sharepointfeeds.com/?media=rss)
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And last but not least, place a link to EndUserSharePoint.Com on the site so users can read all of the great content this site contains. That’s your favorite URL after all, isn’t it?
The Collaboration Café is meant to be more than just an area for posting training classes and an FAQ. The goal for your Café should be to create and foster the growth of a community of knowledge sharing that will benefit your user community and, ultimately, yourself.
Let the users drive the content, let them help one another and watch your user adoption blossom. With the right mixture of support, information, training and case studies your SharePoint environment will continue to provide value to your business.
Turn up the Smooth Jazz and save me a seat near the window!
Author: Lee Reed
ThoughtBridge, Atlanta, GA
Lee Reed is an expert in collaboration and user adoption on the Microsoft SharePoint 2007 platform. His consulting with companies large and small throughout the East Coast has resulted in many successful collaboration environments and increased user adoption.
Lee is currently the Director of Business Process and SharePoint Education for Thoughtbridge, a Microsoft Gold Partner focused exclusively on the Microsoft SharePoint 2007 platform.
Categories: Collaboration
Original Link
https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/12-tips-for-creating-a-collaboration-cafe.aspx
SharePoint 2010 Resource Quota
I was a little confused with the new Resource Quota in SharePoint 2010. This article is great in explaining this new feature.
Enjoy,
Tim
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A Lap Around SharePoint 2010 Sandboxed Solutions Resource Quotas
In this post, I’ll demonstrate sandbox solutions resource quotas and show you what happens when they are exceeded. When sandboxed code executes, certain metrics are collected such as % processor time and # of unhandled exceptions. Timer jobs compile the metrics and calculate resource points usage. When the total resource points used exceeds the daily limit (300 points by default), the sandbox is turned off for the entire site collection. The following table describes the metrics collected and how they are normalized to resource points:
| Resource | Description | Units | Resources per Point | Limit |
| AbnormalProcessTerminationCount | Abnormally terminated process | count | 1 | 1 |
| CPUExecutionTime | CPU Execution Time for site | seconds | 3,600 | 60 |
| CriticalExceptionCount | Critical Exception Events | Events | 10 | 3 |
| InvocationCount | Solution Invocation Events | Events | <TBD> | <TBD> |
| PercentProcessorTime | % CPU usage by solution | % | 85 | 100 |
| ProcessCPUCycles | Solution CPU cycles | cycles | 1 x10^11 | 1 x10^11 |
| ProcessHandleCount | Windows handles count | items | 10,000 | 1,000 |
| ProcessIOBytes | Windows handles count | items | 0 | 1 x10^8 |
| ProcessThreadCount | Thread count in overall process | Thread instances | 10,000 | 200 |
| ProcessVirtualBytes | Memory consumed | Bytes | 0 | 1.0×10^9 |
| SharePointDatabaseQueryCount | Number of SharePoint database queries | Query instances | 20 | 100 |
| SharePointDatabaseQueryTime | Elapsed time to execute query | seconds | 120 | 60 |
| UnhandledExceptionCount | Number of unhandled exceptions | Unhandled exception instances | 50 | 3 |
| UnresponsiveProcessCount | Number of unresponsive processes | Unresponsive process instances | 2 | 1 |
For example, if you developed a sandboxed web part that displayed data from a list, it would perform a SharePoint database query each time it loads. 20 database queries = 1 resource point, so if the web part was displayed 20 times, the site collection would have used 1 resource point. The default site collection maximum is 300 points, so the web part could be displayed 6,000 times in a 24 hour period; after that, the sandbox is turned off until a timer job resets it. It’s important to understand is that resource quotas can be exceeded through high usage and is not necessarily an indicator of poorly written code. Quotas may need to be adjusted based on usage patterns, and the 300 point default is not a one-size fits all setting. Another important point is that resource usage is calculated by timer jobs, so it is possible for the quota to be exceeded until the timer jobs run. Sandboxed code will not be terminated mid-execution.
Create Resource Quota Template
To demonstrate resource quotas, we’ll create a resource quota template that only allows 1 resource point per day and create a sandbox web part that throws exceptions. First, we must create a template. Go to Central Administration > Application Management > Specify Quota Templates. Select Create a new quota templateand provide a name. Set the maximum usage per day to 1 point:
Next, the template must be associated to a site collection. Navigate to Application Management > Configure Quotas and Locksand select the site collection and the quota template:
Create Sandboxed Web Part
Create a sandbox solution with a web part that throws an unhandled exception, for example:
- protected override void CreateChildControls()
- {
- var button = new Button();
- button.Text = “Exception”;
- button.Click += new EventHandler(button_Click);
- this.Controls.Add(button);
- base.CreateChildControls();
- }
- void button_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
- {
- throw new NotImplementedException();
- }
Add the web part to a page. Now we know that 3 unhandled exceptions is the limit, so click the exception button 3 times.
Since we configured the site collection to use a maximum of 1 resource point per day, you might expect that when you clicked the button a 4th time the execution would be blocked, but usage is calculated by timer jobs. If you open the solution gallery, you’ll see that no resource points have been used:
Execute Resource Usage Timer Jobs
Next, we’ll manually run the timer jobs to calculate resource usage. Navigate to Monitoring > Review Job Definitions, and you’ll find 3 timer jobs for each web application:
| Name | Frequency | Description |
| Solution Resource Usage Log Processing | 5 minutes | Aggregates resource usage data from sandboxed solution execution |
| Solution Resource Usage Update | 15 minutes | Records resource usage data from sandboxed solution execution, and sends email to owners of the site collection that are exceeding their allocated resource quota. |
| Solution Daily Resource Usage Update | Daily | Marks the daily boundary for sandboxed solution resource quota monitoring. |
First, run the usage log processing job for the site collection by clicking “Run Now”:
Next, run the usage update job for the site collection:
Return to the solution gallery and you’ll notice the daily usage has been updated. The site collection sandbox has also been turned off since we used 1 resource point.
When the sandbox has been turned off, you’ll see the following message when you access the page containing the sandboxed web part:
To reset, run the Solution Daily Resource Usage Update timer job:
![clip_image010[4]](http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/johnwpowell/WindowsLiveWriter/ALapAroundSharePoint2010SandboxSolutions_CF9D/clip_image010%5B4%5D.jpg "clip_image010[4]")
Summary
In this post, I demonstrated sandboxed solution resource quotas and what happens when the quota is exceeded. The main purpose of resource quotas is to limit the risk that custom code will negatively impact the server farm. Since custom code is the leading cause of support calls, sandboxed solutions and resource quotas provide a measure of confidence not afforded by SharePoint 2007.
References
Original Location
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/johnwpowell/archive/2010/03/01/a-lap-around-sharepoint-2010-sandboxed-solutions-resource-quotas.aspx
Tim R's Space 