Building up your Organization’s Value with Taxonomy

I am going through a SP2010 Deployment/Upgrade and having some difficulty with the business owners understanding what SharePoint can do. With any application, there must be a foundation of data, structure, or some kind of plan to build from.

How many buildings are built without blueprints?

Here is a good article around taxonomy I wanted to share.

Enjoy,

Tim

 

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Ryan Duguid  8 Dec 2011 9:53 AM

Getting the most out of SharePoint 2010 should involve the new Managed Metadata Service. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this service and the support it provides for modeling and deploying a rich corporate taxonomy, I’d start by reading Pat’s post Introducing Enterprise Metadata Management. By knowing how the documents and concepts could be grouped together you can start shaping the user experience with your SharePoint instance. Once you decide that you want to take the organization of your enterprise content to the next level, you need to decide how to organize your documents. If you are lucky, you already have a well defined taxonomy that can be imported into the Term Store with SharePoint’s import capabilities. Even if you have something that starts to help organize your data the power of leveraging other views of the subject you already have will help find improved ways to access and organize your data for the users. If your organization hasn’t started to organize, or wants to improve their taxonomies, or wants to compare their data to make sure there aren’t areas where you haven’t covered, you now can find pre-built foundational taxonomies in a variety of fields and expertise.

The SharePoint team has teamed up with WAND, a leading provider of Enterprise Taxonomies, to provide a starting point and make their General Business Taxonomy available as a freely available download. The General Business Taxonomy consists of common functional areas that exist in most businesses. The General Business Taxonomy can be imported in to the SharePoint 2010 term store within minutes and provides a great starting point for customers looking to build out term sets and take advantage of the Managed Metadata Service. In addition to this freely available download, WAND provide a range of taxonomies covering a variety of domains including Products and Services, Jobs, Skills, Medical, Finance, Records Retention, Legal, Insurance, Manufacturing, Information Technology, and Mining

Download the General Business Taxonomy today and start to explore the benefits that taxonomy can bring to your business and your people.

If you’re new to taxonomy and the benefits it can bring to your business, take a look at the following sites:

• TechNet – Managed Metadata and Taxonomy Resource Center
• WAND Inc. Website
• WAND Blog

Original Link

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ecm/archive/2011/12/08/building-up-your-organization-s-value-with-taxonomy.aspx

 

Windows PowerShell Command Builder

Here’s a handy site I just stumbled across.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/TechNet/en-us/Office/media/WindowsPowerShell/WindowsPowerShellCommandBuilder.html

 

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.

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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.

1. Go to the Central Administration à Application Management à Manage Service Applications
2. Click within the Ribbon on New à Web Analytics Service Application
3. 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)
4. Provide a unique name for the Web Analytics, Staging and Reporting Database
5. 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.

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

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James Waymire

Microsoft

There 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:

1. Stop the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
   2. Right-click SharePoint 2010 Timer, and then click Stop.
   3. Close the Services console.
2. 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.
3. In Windows Explorer, locate and then double-click the following folder:
4. %SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID
5. Notes
1. The %SystemDrive% system variable specifies the letter of the drive on which Windows is installed. By default, Windows is installed on drive C.
2. The GUID placeholder specifies the GUID folder. There may be more than one of these.
3. The ProgramData folder may be hidden. To view the hidden folder, follow these steps:
1. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
2. Click the View tab.
3. In the Advanced settings list, click Show hidden files and folders under Hidden files and folders, and then click OK.
4. You can also simply type this directly in the path if you do not want to show hidden files and folders.
6. Back up the Cache.ini file. (Make a copy of it. DO NOT DELETE THIS FILE, Only the XML files in the next step)
7. 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.
8. Double-click the Cache.ini file.
9. On the Edit menu, click Select All.
10. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
11. 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)
12. On the File menu, click Exit.
13. Start the Timer service. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
    2. Right-click SharePoint 2010 Timer, and then click Start.
    3. Close the Services console.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. Check in the GUID folder to make sure that the xml files are repopulating. This may take a bit of time.

Original Link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jamesway/archive/2011/05/23/sharepoint-2010-clearing-the-configuration-cache.aspx

 

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

JoshGav

            26 May 2010 5:33 PM

 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

 

Office 365 Video: Manage employee schedules

Here is a really good one that shows the power of SharePoint and Outlook.

Enjoy,

Tim

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Have you started using Office 365? Do you need to manage employee absence requests and vacation schedules? This short video shows you how to manage employee schedules using SharePoint Online calendars, Outlook, and SharePoint’s Approval Workflow

If you can’t access the video from here, go to Manage
business and employee schedules.

IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW

You should know that the services and features this
video shows depend on several factors, such as the Office 365 plan purchase
agreement, licenses that might be assigned to each user, and specific user
permissions.

The scenario presented in this video requires Office
365 for professionals and small businesses.

If you want to learn more about using SharePoint
calendars with Outlook, check out the following topics:

Use a Group Calendar

Synchronize SharePoint content with Outlook

Original URL

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Blogs/GetThePoint/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=8d9e2a99%2Df288%2D47c2%2D916b%2D2f32864f7b82&ID=493&Web=5e4647a0%2De7d0%2D4626%2Db71c%2Db1ff06402465