If you've restored SharePoint Portal and, your index looks clean but search doesn't work, check out the article and hotfix below

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885265/.

You'll have to call MS for the hotfix.

I've been spec'ing out a requirement for a Resume Management solution using SharePoint as the presentation layer.

 

Easy enough you say...build up some lists, set up the lookup columns and Presto Chango! We have ourselves a SharePoint application!...

 

I can't tell you how many times I've heard of this.  While SharePoint is incredibly effective for tying together short groups of data (i.e. Tasks and Issues), a WSS site and it's lists DO NOT provide an alternative to a relational database.

 

There are just too many risks such as data integrity, modeling errors etc.  Don't be afraid.  Go N-Tier baby!

 

If you have a set of data that you know you'll use to create reports and relationships, and reuse in different applications (think Office, ASP.NET, SSRS, BI) then build out a SQL database and whip up a Web Service (I like C#) .

 

Now, we have an N-Tier app with our data, services and presentation all separated, reusable, and scalable.

 

For a better idea, run through the installations of some of Microsoft's Office Sample Solutions.  Particularly the Proposals and Recruiting solutions.

 

Happy Solution Building!

 

 

For those of you who didn't heed the warnings of FrontPage....you can use this to Re-Ghost pages in SharePoint Portal Server

More links for SharePointers...if you applied SP2 then you'll need to review these hotfixes for WSS and SPS

This article gives the goods on .NET 2.0 with SPS..check out the Support for .NET Framework 2.0 Section....

 

The following whitepapers review the changes for WSS SP2 and SPS SP2..

 

Good luck and keep plugging!

Happy Holidays! They seemed pretty short this year...anyways, this is pretty important for those of you who are big on User Alerts....

 

When you remove a user from a Web site, site group, or cross-site group after he or she has created alerts, you must manually delete any alerts that he or she has set up. This is also true for any lists or libraries where you change security settings to limit access. If a user has set up alerts for the list or library, he or she will continue to receive them after you change the security settings. It is important to delete these alerts to prevent unauthorized users from having access to site and user information.

 

Source: Microsoft WSS Admin Guide

Citrix's WISP provides application publishing and content redirection via SharePoint PS 2003 and WSS 2.0.  It works great, but there is a hitch. 

 

As of my last installation, it ONLY ALLOWS ONE CITRIX FARM TO BE SPECIFIED!  Keep that in mind before you start moving all of your users!

For those of you who have been scouring the Microsoft Accelerators (now known as Sample Solutions) you may have noticed the Clinical Trial Initiation Process Solution.

 

The solution itself almost completely duplicates the Sample Solution for Proposals, replacing "Proposals" with "Protocols".  It is comprised of custom web services, an Information Bridge Framework solution and WSS.  Essentially, the base code allows you to create workpaces based on a template with default documents tagged with XML.  The Document Actions pane in Microsoft Word allows you to create and assign sections, notify team members of changes and also provides search, preview and insert across all documents included in their respective content libraries.

 

Drop me a line if you have any questions.

You can find my list here.  Downloads include SharePoint web parts, toolkits, .net packages and more.  If you don't see something you need, drop me a line.

Per Steven Van de Craen's blog:

 

For any of you that have upgraded their SharePoint Virtual Server to ASP.NET 2.0, try this...

When you create a new site using the 'Sites' area,

you get the JavaScript error shown below ('WebForm_PostBackOptions' is undefined)

The site is still created in the background, but it is not added to the Sites list in the area anymore. You also won't be redirected to the 'template selection' page anymore, however you can still set the template for the new site by surfing to it directly...

This problem only occurs when the virtual server is set to ASP.NET 2.0 and not with ASP.NET 1.1. If you look on the Internet you find similar threads about ASP.NET 2.0 web apps.

Comments or suggestions are appreciated.

If you have done any research on SharePoint customization, you have undoubtedly encountered the BEWARE FRONTPAGE warnings...well, there are two sides to every story....

 

First off, there is Ghosting...basically, to promote performance and to fully realize SharePoints benefits, all pages are stored in the DB...think about it, one default.aspx template, 20 sites...instead of having a folder for each topic (category), SharePoint simply says, "I know what this site should look like, here is the template...now, let me go find the site you were looking for and dump it into said template"...this is called Ghosting...changes made to the template, style, etc will be reflected in each page using the template...

 

Which leads us to the Frontpage scenario...say that you open FP 2003, and quickly go to File > Open Site > http://portal/sites/somesite...well my friend, you have just entered into unghosted territory...in order for FP to complete the changes, it actually makes a copy of the site onto the hard disk...you have essentially separated it from it's friends...and once it's unghosted, it can be difficult to undo the damage...You can use the Ghost Hunter web part to try to rectify your mistakes...

 

The question now begs...how the heck can I use FP without entering into this whole ghosting nonsense?  Easy, just open the .aspx page directly, i.e. browse File Explorer, right click the file and choose "Edit with Frontpage 2003" or just do a File > Open and browse to the file....

 

There are some other issues that I will post later for the sake of brevity...for the most part, I make my changes in FP...and you should too!

Mauro Cardarelli provides a great snippet on WSS search...

An FYI to anybody interested in the SharePoint solution for Recruiting listed here on Microsoft's website.  The solution itself assumes that you will be connecting it to an HRIS system currently in place or that you will be developing an Applicant Tracking System of your own.

 

The solution itself is pretty straightforward but not without it's bugs.  Contact me via this blog or email if you need some help.

 

The Sample Solution for Recruiting is available via www.gotdotnet.com.

 

 

Thanks to Heather Solomon for the quick tip...if you would like to change the page color for a SharePoint page (i.e. default.aspx), simply add #PageBody to your style sheet as such:

 

#PageBody{

             background color:

}

 

as the body runs with id="PageBody"...