Month: November 2011

How to create a Chart on a SharePoint 2010 site

The Microsoft Office SharePoint Enterprise 2010 is a collaborative application that can be used by multiple users connected to the same server. On an established SharePoint website for a server, you can upload files and edit other users’ work. You can also add new Web parts to files, such as adding a chart Web part containing data from another file stored on your computer. Adding a chart to a SharePoint Enterprise page can be helpful when you want to visually express data to other users connected to the SharePoint website.

  1. Log into SharePoint site.
  2. Navigate to the site where you want to create a Chart.
  3. Select an existing page that you want to add the chart.
  4. Click the Insert tab and then click Web Part.
  5. Click the Business Data option from the Web Parts group. Click the Chart Web Part option and then click the Add button.
  6. Click Save & Close.
  7. Data and Appearance option and then click the Connect Chart to Data option.
  8. Select your data source type, such as a Excel workbook that has been published to Excel Services or other data source type, and then click Next.
  9. Select the file containing the data and then click the Next button two more times. ClickFinish and the chart with your data will appear on the page.

How to Add an Additional Exchange Email Account in Outlook

Microsoft Outlook 2010 is the full-version email client included in the Microsoft Office suite of productivity applications. Adding email accounts to Outlook is a fairly streamlined task, usually requiring only the email address and password for the Exchange email account.

To add an additional Exchange email account do next simple steps:

  • Run Outlook 2010
  • Click the File option on the top toolbar and then click the Add Account button under “Account Information”.

  • Type the name of the person to whom the new email account belongs into the field labeled Your Name. Type the email address for the new account in the Email Address input box. Type the password for the email account, and then retype the password to confirm. Click Next. Outlook will attempt to connect with the Exchange email server and log in with the information you have provided.

  • If successful, click Finish. The configuration is complete. If unsuccessful, click the Retry button to reattempt the connection, or click the Back button and manually configure the email servers.

  • You see the message like this. Press Ok and restart your Outlook 2010.

  • Additional account was added!

Good luck!

How to create an Enterprise wiki

An Enterprise wiki helps users capture and publish knowledge that can be shared across the enterprise. When an organization needs an easy content editing experience in a single location for co-authoring content, conducting discussions, and managing projects, consider creating an Enterprise wiki.

      1. To create an Enterprise wiki by using Central Administration

Verify that you have the following administrative credentials:

      • To use Central Administration, the user account that is performing this procedure must be a member of the Farm Administrators group.

NOTE: You can also create an Enterprise wiki as a sub-site of another site by clicking New Site on the Site Actions menu.

        • In the Web Application section, click the Web Application drop-down list to select the Web application where you want to create the Enterprise wiki.

        • In the Title and Description section, type a title in the Title box and, optionally, type a description in the Descriptionbox.

        • In the Web Site Address section, select / to create the Enterprise wiki at the root of the Web application, or select/sites/ to create the Enterprise wiki site at a specific path. If you select /sites/, you must also type the site name.

        • In the Template Selection section, click the Publishing tab, and then click Enterprise Wiki.

        • In the Primary Site Collection Administrator section, type the user name for the user who will be the site collection administrator.

        • In the Secondary Site Collection Administrator section, type the user name for the secondary administrator of the site collection.

        • Designating a secondary site collection administrator is a best practice to ensure that someone can manage the site collection when a primary site collection administrator is not present.

        • If you are using quotas to manage storage for site collections, in the Quota Template section, click a template in the Select a quota template list.

        • Click OK.

      1. Create an Enterprise wiki by using Windows PowerShell

Verify that you meet the following minimum requirements:

    • See Add-SPShellAdmin.

    • On the Start menu, click All Programs.

    • Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.

    • Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.

    • From the Windows PowerShell command prompt window (that is, PS C:>), type the following commands:

      1. To display all the site templates, type the following command:Get-SPWebTemplate
      2. To create a variable that contains the name of the Enterprise wiki template, type the following command:$wikitemp = Get-SPWebTemplate “ENTERWIKI#0”
      3. To create an Enterprise wiki site, type the following command:

        New-SPSite http://yoursite.com/Wiki -OwnerAlias <domainuser> 

        -Template $wikitemp

        Where <domainuser> is the user name of the site owner.

Web Analytics: Monitors the health of the Report Consolidator component

The quick fix is via SharePoint PowerShell – open that and do the following step.

NOTE: You must be an Admin to do this. Run your SharePoint PowerShell as Administrator.

Step 1 – Get the GUID of the Service Application 

> Get-SPServiceApplication
…
Managed Metadata … Managed Metadata … 50f28d03-a89a-4cd0-a5ce-3fa95bf19ac7
Web Analytics Ser… Web Analytics Ser… ec65ee1c-f3d3-4bc7-9bb1-6cccb4705cdf
Excel Services Ap… Excel Services Ap… 4041c849-5ca9-48e1-93a6-1a7b4edac13f
…

Notice the Web Analytics service – copy the GUID in the ID Column.

Step 2 – Turn on Data Trimming on the Reporting Service


> Set-SPWebAnalyticsServiceApplication -Identity <GUID> -EnableDataTrimming

(replace <GUID> with the GUID you copied above – NOTE: if you only have one Analytics Service, you can omit the GUID)

for example:

> Set-SPWebAnalyticsServiceApplication -Identity ec65ee1c-f3d3-4bc7-9bb1-6cccb4705cdf -EnableDataTrimming

Give if a few minutes to let the SPTimer job kick then return to the Health Monitor, click the message and select Re-analyze Now – message should go away!

How to migrate (copy) Microsoft Outlook 2010 custom views to backup or share

Microsoft Outlook doesn’t offer an easy method to backup or share custom views, and exporting the contents to a new pst does not include the views or custom forms.

Copy views to a ViewsBackup.pst

  1. Add a new .pst (File, New, Outlook Data File).
  2. Add folders to the .pst for each type of view you need to copy. (One folder each of Mail, Calendar, contacts, etc).
  3. Select the first new folder.
  4. Open the Define views dialog.
  5. Select the view you want to copy to the new pst and click Copy.
  6. Select one of the “This folder…” options.
  7. Change the view name, if desired.
  8. Click Ok.
  9. Repeat for each view you want to copy.

Repeat for each folder type.

To copy a view that was originally designed for “this folder only”, you’ll need open that folder, and make a copy of it using the “For all [folders]” option then begin with Step 3.

Copying views to a different pst uses the same steps, but you’ll copy the “for this folder view” and set it for All [folder]. This adds it to the default pst (or Exchange mailbox). If you want it for a specific folder only, you’ll need to select the folder, copy the view again and set it for this folder only.

Views created for “this folder only” are stored in the folder – moving or copying the folder to a new pst includes these views (as well as custom forms published to the folder).

Exchange server users can copy views and published forms using the File, Folder menu.

How to fix The list cannot be Displayed in Datasheet View

By default, the Datasheet view of a list or library is not supported when you are using the 64-bit version of Microsoft Office 2010 installed on a 64-bit Windows operating system.

If your business needs require using the 64-bit version of Office 2010, you can install the 2007 Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components to enable the Datasheet component. These components are available here on the Microsoft download center:
2007 Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components

NOTE: If you are using a 64-bit version of an Internet browser, for example the 64-bit version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0, there is no support for the Edit in Datasheet feature.

NOTE: You must install all 64-bit versions of Office products before you install the 2007 Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components.

OTHER REASONS DATASHEET VIEW MIGHT NOT WORK
There might be other reasons why Datasheet view is not working, including the following:

  • A datasheet component compatible with SharePoint 2010 is not installed.
  • Your browser does not support ActiveX controls.
  • Certain libraries and lists do not support Datasheet view, such as a slide library, and therefore the Datasheet view command is dimmed.

How to fix SharePoint 2010 Cannot open workbook because it’s not stored in an Excel Services Application trusted location

If you are using the Office Web apps in SharePoint 2010 then you may come across this error…

“This workbook cannot be opened because it is not stored in an Excel Services Application trusted location. To create an Excel Services Application trusted location, contact your system administrator.”

To fix it do next simple steps:

  1. Jump into Central Administration and goto Manage service applications.
  2. Click on Excel services Application.
  3. Then click on Trusted file locations
  4. You can see that http:// is already there, so you could just add https:// or put in a url to a specific location
  5. Fill in the boxes and also ticked the trust children box.

Once you have done this go back to your SharePoint site and Excel document and it will open up in the browser! Good luck!

How to create shared contacts folders in Outlook 2010

To share your contacts in Outlook 2010 do next steps:

  1. Open Outlook 2010.
  2. Click on Contacts in the lower left corner, then click on the Contact Folder you wish to share to select.

  1. Next click on Share Contacts in the sharing section of the menu bar.

  1. An invitation will open up.

Note: If option “Recipient can add …” is checked the other person will be able to add, edit and delete items in the folder. If you only intend for them to see and use the items uncheck it.

Click on the To… button and select a user from the Global Address List that you wish to grant permission to share your contacts.

Then click Send and confirm the invitation.

  1. Click Yes to confirm sharing folder.

  1. The person you invited will receive an email with the invitation. Open received email.
  2. They click Open this Contacts Folder to accept.

How to fix Sharepoint Foundation 2010 Search returns no results

SharePoint Foundation 2010 includes basic searching features. Despite all rumors and recommendations to upgrade to higher level searching packages, the basic SharePoint search works quite well … and it’s very useful.
If your SharePoint server is not returning search results, the following may help you resolve the issue. It’s important to create the right accounts, enable the right services, assign the accounts to these services and finally attach the search server to your web applications.
Let’s begin …
  1. You need to create domain accounts for Searching and Crawling. Using the Farm Account (or default accounts) is not recommended. In our example we will use “spSearch” and “spCrawl”. Use complex passwords! These domains accounts should only be standard users, no administrative privileges should be applied.
  2. Log into the SharePoint Central Administration Page
  3. CA > Security > General Security > Configure Managed Accounts > Register Managed Account.
    • Enter in “domainspSearch” and the password you chose
    • Click “OK”.
    • You should now see this account in the Managed Account list
  4. CA > System Settings > Servers > Manage Services on Server > SharePoint Foundation Search > Start.
    • Service Account -> “DomainspSearch”
    • Content Access Account (Crawl) -> “DomainspCrawl” and the password you chose
    • Leave everything else as defaults (you can change the Database Name if you are having issues)
  5. CA > Security > General Security > Configure service accounts
    • Choose “Windows Service -> SharePoint Foundation Service”
    • Choose “DomainspSearch” for the account selection
    • Click “OK”
  6. CA > Application Management > Manage Content Databases
    • This is important! For each site you want automatically crawled, you must assign the search server.
    • In the top right corner under “Web Application”, choose the web applications to be crawled, one at a time followed by a click on the “database name” column once they are loaded.
    • In the profile page, change the “Search Server” and “Preferred Server for Timer Jobs” to your server.
    • Click “OK”
    • Repeat for any other Website Applications you wish crawled
  7. CA > Monitoring > Timer Jobs > Review Timer Jobs > SharePoint Foundation Search Refresh
    • Choose “Run Now” to begin indexing your web applications (sites)
    • This can take several hours depending on the size of your database(s). Please be patient.
  8. If you’re feeling eager and have a background in SQL, you can use the SQL Management Studio to check the progress. If you are not familiar with SQL, don’t be a hero … this can cause major damage.

    • Load the SQL Management Studio
    • Expand the search database created in the earlier steps (typically WSS_Search_%hostname%)
    • Right click the database -> new query
    • Enter in the following Query:select * from msscrawlhostlist (execute)

You will be presented with a table of results including a column for Hostname and SuccessCount.
SuccessCount increases as it indexes each page.

    • You can also lookup the crawl summary with:select * from MSSCrawlURLLog
    • And should there be any error codes in the MSSCrawlURLog, they can be referenced with:select * from MSSCrawlErrorList where ErrorID = ‘<ERRORID>’

If you run into issues where things are still not being crawled, i would suggest deleting the spCrawl and spSearch from SharePoint and Active Directory, re-creating them from scratch, repeating this entire process, and changing the “database” value in step “3”. This will re-create the crawling database from scratch.
I hope it helpful to you!

Benefits of outsourcing Exchange Email

There are huge benefits to outsourcing your mail.

No single point of failure (power goes out, nic card dies, hard drive failure). All of this results in your mail being down.You do not have to pay for an exchange admin (min of $50k a year to have someone keep your mail server running).

Most hosting company (like the one i work for), have a ton of redundancy built into there networks. Its more more secure then your everyday work networks.

You can save a lot of money also by outsourcing. You never have to worry about hardware failure. No more having to purchase Microsoft Licenses, backup software,antivirus software. You also do not have to pay for that person to keep the server running. That includes everyday maintenance.

You also never have to upgrade. When you outsource, the hosting company do all the upgrades for you.

Also, most your hosting company have Top notch Enterprise security. Specially if the company is SAS70 compliant. They get audited all the time to make sure the customers data is secure and protected.

Also, Spam Filters. Most company’s (at least you should check first), include spam filtering. That is another cost you will have to pay if you keep it in-house.

There are a lot more, and i will be happy to go more in depth in this conversation if you wish. Also, I work for a Hosted Exchange company. If you are interested in talking to me offline about your needs, let me know. I didn’t want to make this just about my company but i wanted to just give you facts on any hosted exchange company you go with.

No matter what company you choose, i believe hosted exchange is a lot better then keeping it inhouse. Just make sure you do your research on the top hosted exchange company before you make your choice.

You can send me a private message if you want to talk offline about your needs and i can at least give you more information about what you need to look for.

Thanks