If anybody does any type of InfoPath 2007 browser based form development knows all about the dreaded IPFS error box.  In my opinion it's dreaded because the lack of error details it gives or when it does give details how cryptic it is.  If you don't do this type of development and think I'm kidding checkout the warning box that I got today.

In the past year I made it my mission to speak at least once a month at either a Code Camp or User Group meeting to practice on my speaking, presentation and writing skills.  After squeezing in 18 events and 20 + session I can truthfully say that I’ve done the best I could this year.  All this practice this past year has given me some good experience and opened some doors for me in the coming year.  I’m really excited to say that I’ll be speaking this year at the SharePoint Technology Conference January 27^th thru 29^th and this is my first major event for 2009.  I’m doing 3 sessions at www.SPTechCon.com and I’m really excited about it.  Each session is 100 level and focused for individuals looking to get the basics about each subject.  I’ve done a variation of the SharePoint Security Management for the Business User session at the Roanoke Code Camp in the spring of this year and it was a really fun class because we talked and walked through the security screens for a Site Collection, Web (sub site), List, Folder and item.  The other 2 sessions are brand new for me but really interesting subjects.  Tuning Memory Management session is something that I think everyone should here about at least once if they are running WCM style sites, InfoPath Forms Services, Excel Calculation Services, Search or just a large SharePoint environment to be honest.  There are so many new pieces to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that it’s really important to understand what is available to help tune your environment and where to find benchmarking information.  Last but not least is SharePoint Directory Management session that gives the basics that you need to know if you’re going to be doing incoming email and how it works with Active Directory if you decide to do it in advanced mode.  Just like everything else with SharePoint there is several different ways to tackle this feature but there is no one fit all approach if you ask me.  Everything depends on your situation you have and which approach would work best for you now and in the future.  Below is a list of my session titles and abstracts that I’ll be speaking on.

Tuning Memory Management in SharePoint

When I began working with SharePoint Portal Server 2001 andSharePoint Team Services there weren’t a lot of options available for tuning anything especially memory.  WhenSharePoint Portal Server 2003, Windows SharePoint Services, IIS 6 and SQL 2005 were available we started seeing more options for tuning SharePoint installation and it was really necessary because of the new capability of scaling out the farm and RAM limitation of Windows Server 2003 32 bit.  Now with MOSS and WSS v3 having more functionality and more screens/options for performance tuning memory management has become a necessary action to make the farm run as smoothly as possible.  This session shows and gets into those details on what can be done to make your farm memory management as efficient as possible.  

SharePoint Security Management for the Business User

With MOSS or WSS v3 the new site collection and sub site security capabilities are astonishing but there are so many new options available that it’s really hard to truly understand what is possible and how to effectively manage security.  The complexity of managing security even gets more complicated when working with sub sites because of how the screens display the security groups.   This session reviews all the different options that are available and then goes into detail on how to effectively use the options with and without inheritance at the site collection and sub site level.  List, Library, Folder, Item and Document level security is reviewed to finish up the session.  This session uses demo’s frequently to actually show what screens and options are being talked about so everyone canget a clear picture of what is really being talked about.

SharePoint Directory Management

When MOSS and WSS v3 came out I couldn’t believe all the new capabilities and after working with it for over 2 years I’m still learning new things and I truly don’t believe I’ll ever know every capability.  One of the new capabilities in this versionis SharePoint Directory Management Service on the Incoming email page in Central Administration and I found out how important this option is when doing incoming email for SharePoint List’s a few projects ago.  This session reviews SharePoint Directory Management Service purpose, capabilities and technical detail.  Once all the high level detail and how it works with Active Directory are out of the way then we can start into the demos.  The demo’s go into some detailand shows a lot of what was talked about earlier in the session.

Hope everyone has a great holiday season.

Cheers 

Like most other Friday nights I was checking at the Delta counter at terminal 2 at the JFK airport getting ready to head home for the weekend and for some reason I was waiting an extra long time to get my bags checked.  While I was waiting I notice ayoung lady around my age at one of the counters and she was on the phone talking but looked really sad.  I figured that she was leaving a loved one and heading away for Christmas or something like that and I didn't think anything else of it.  Then I finally got called to a ticket counter and it was right next to the young ladies and she was still there and looking even sadder than before.  While I was standing there she started crying while on her phone and I started to get really nervous because I was starting to feel really bad for her because I hate it when women are crying.  It always makes me said when women are crying and I’m not sure why but that’s just how I am. Then I started to listen why she was so sad and it was because the airline wasn't going to let her dog on the plane with her because it was too big or something and if she wanted to take it with her it would cost any extra $150 and she saying she only had $40 in cash and she had no other way to pay for it.  I could hear her talking with a friend that she has in NY to see if he or she could make it out to the airport in time and pay for it and I don’t think things were looking to good for her.  I honestly didn’t think anybody was going to make it out to the airport in time and she only had 45 minutes before she had to check in.  Everybody was looking really gloom and then I finally asked the Delta agent  how much it would cost and they said $150 and I said Ok, I’ll pay for.  They all looked at me and I said again I would pay for it. Then the young lady looked at me and started crying even more (not good for me) and she gave me a big hug because she was so happy.  At this time I was a nervous wreck and started shaking on the inside because I was so nervous for her and I just wanted to see her happy and not crying anymore.  To be honest I was just glad that she could get on her plane with her dog and go where ever she planned on going.  During this whole time I was thinking that this young lady could have easily been my wife and I would have wanted somebody to help her if she was in the same type of situation.  When I get home and tell Heather about the whole thing and how much money it cost I will get in a little bit of trouble because money is tight for us at the moment but I honestly think it was the right thing to do.  I figured that this could be my Christmas present to myself.  I’m normally not this open of a person about my personal life but for some reason I just felt that I needed to share this experience.  Even now when I’m writing this my heart still races a little and my nerves are still a little shaky.  I’m just hoping that everything worked out for her and her dog and they are happily on their way to their final destination.

Hope everybody has a great weekend and happy holiday season.

Cheers

Just recently I was in Kansas City for "KC Day of Dot Net" event and was talking to Becky about how to better promote the SharePoint Saturday event in Virginia Beach on January 10th and she said I should be doing it through Twitter and Facebook.  If anybody really knows me I'm not the most social person because I'm always working a lot of hours and I like to keep a low profile but I figured I would give it a valiant effort and see what happens.  When I got back to NYC I created 2 new Twitter accounts http://twitter.com/michaellotter and http://twitter.comspsaturday and a new Facebook group called SharePoint Saturday and event for Virginia Beach and started using all my new resources with some help from Becky.  

A couple of days has gone by and I'm following a few people and few people are following me on Twitter and I've added the Twitter blog widget to my blog and a link to the SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach site.  Beyond that I'm still getting my feet wet with the whole thing and trying to find out which third party Twitter application works best for me.  I can remember back in April at the Pittsburgh Code Camp (great code camp!) I met Amanda Laucher and she tried to convince me to do Twitter then but I told her it wasn't for me because it was way to social (I was having a hard enough time with my blog).  She was so fanatic about it, a group of us even joked around with her that she would be the first Twitter MVP.  The value of Twitter is still being measured but it does seem to be a good vehicle for getting information out and meeting new people.  Last night I met Jeremy Thake and he introduce me to his SharePoint Dev Wiki.

Now Facebook is a different story and it's probably because I'm not using it correctly yet because of it's complexity but I'm getting some good tips from Becky and I'm sure it will bring great value in the future.  Currently I just like posting pictures that Heather takes and taking credit for them.   I've created a badge for my Facebook account because this is the only way I know how to invite people outside of search for them on Facebook.

Well I better get back to work on all my SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach and New York City items before I run out of time.

Cheers 

The below post was a big senior moment for me because it took me several hours to figure out what was so obliviously wrong.  This post is for anybody else that has one and for my next one.    

Just recently I installed Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite on the same VPC that I had Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005 installed on.  I was really excited about getting to use it until I noticed that the VSTO for Office 2007 wasn't displaying any templates.

This was really bad for me because I've been using the SharePoint Workflow template for my current project and I need to create 2 more workflows this week.  I searched the web for a solution and I couldn't find anybody else having the same problem or a solution.  I kept troubleshooting the problem but was striking out big time.  After a couple days of trying to figure it out casually I decided to dig in for a final stand and figure out what was wrong.  I started out uninstalling VS 2005 and VS 2008 Professional and rebooted but nothing different.  Then I installed SP1 for 3.5 and VS 2008 but when I rebooted nothing different.  Then I uninstalled MOSS SDK, WSS SDK and SharePoint Extensions and reinstalled with the latest bits and rebooted but still nothing different.  I was starting to get a little desperate at this point and I started looking at all the settings in VS and on the New Project pop-up window then I noticed that the default .NET Framework was 3.0 and not 3.5.  I changed it to 3.5 and all my templates magically appeared.  It would have been really nice if they had a dummy message appear saying "hey dummy wrong framework use 3.5 to see these".  Once I switched the .NET Framework to 3.5 everything appeared magically. 

The KC Day of Dot Net has been going really well and getting ready to listen to Todd Bleeker session but during Steve Walker session he mentioned that Microsoft patterns and practices was working on SharePoint Guidance guide.  When I went out and searched for it I was happy to see that it has been released and after a quick glance at the content, it looks to be really great and useful stuff.  If you get a chance definitely check it out.

Cheers 

When doing InfoPath form development I’m always doingcertain things on a consistent basis and one of them is building a .NET Classfrom my InfoPath form data source.  Theapproach that I’m going to mention can be done in either version but theexample that I’m going to show is for InfoPath 2007.  The reason for building a .NET Class from myInfoPath data source is because I’m usually using the form with a SharePoint2007 workflow (Visual Studio 2008) or .NET Web Service for submitting data to adatabase.  The way I do it is very simpleand keeps the coding process from getting to complex.  Key thing for me is to make things simple andeasy to maintain.  Something to keep inmind is that we’re not building high transaction applications but InfoPath formsfor gathering information from people.   In this article I’m going to show how to takean “Employee Status Report” form data source and convert it into a C#Class.  If you’re a VB.NET person noworries because the process will be exactly the same except for one piece andI’ll point that out.  One more itembefore we get started, when I’m working with InfoPath 2007 forms first then Ialways do is save my form to a project folder but unpackaged.  To do this just use the “save as sourcefiles” command from the “File” menu.

The reason for doing this is to have the flexibility to getto any of the files that I want.  Forthis instant I want access to the “myschema.xsd” and “manifest.xsf”.  The “myschema.xsd” file is the XSD file forthe data source that is built with InfoPath designer and the “manifest.xsf”file is the main with all the instructions and makes InfoPath designer launch.

Now let’s take a quick look at the form for this example andthe design of the data source for the form.

As you can see the form is very simple but it’s reallyimportant to make sure that the data source is design logically and makes sincebecause we’re going to be using it as an object.  After a quick glance I’m sure you noticedthat “MyFields” was renamed to “EmployeeStatusReport”.  This was done to make sure it has a uniquename and could differentiate itself from other InfoPath form data sources.  Everything else is just named descriptivelyto make sure it’s understandable from the code. I’m not saying that my name approach of the fields is the way to go andany approach would be acceptable as long as its descriptive.

Now that the form is built and saved to my project folderwere going to close InfoPath and open “Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt”.  The program is located on my machine at“Start -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 -> Visual Studio Tools”.  Once the command window is open navigate outto the location of your InfoPath form files. It should look something like the below image.

The file that we are after is the “myschema.xsd” file.  Now that we are in the location of the files let’srun the xsd.exe program to generatethe .NET Class.  Below is the commandline statement that I use but there are many more options available and you canread all them by typing in xsd.exeand hitting enter.

C# version:

xsd.exe /c /l:CSmyschema.xsd

VB.NET version:

Xsd.exe /c /l:VBmyschema.xsd

Once its done running (which should happen in matter of seconds)a message should appear saying that it wrote a new file called “myschema.cs”.

Once the file has been generated I just go rename the fileto the namespace name and then add it to my Visual Studio SharePoint workflowor .NET Web Service project.  Once thefile is available in the project you have the capability to bind the datasource to the .NET Class and you have all your data is available in astandardized format.  If you ever makechanges to your InfoPath data source you’ll need to rerun the xsd.exe commandagainst the new “schema.xsd” file and then just delete the old .NET Class fromthe Visual Studio project and add the new .NET Class to the project and you’redone.

I’ve talked with a lot of hard core developers in the pastabout this approach and a lot of them just look at me strange because I’mhaving a program build the code for me but to be honest it works and I don’tsee anything wrong with it for what I’m using it for.  The cool thing is I never have to make anymodifications to that code file and it’s all generated by the xsd.exe program.  For me this is a great way to get clients tostandardize there development process for building and supporting InfoPathforms.

After this weekend I’ll be putting together a couple morearticles on how I use the .NET Class with a .NET Web Service and Visual Studio2008 SharePoint Workflow project. When reading the next articles you’ll noticethat everything is just as simple as this one is.  Simplicity is my main goal and notcomplexity.

Cheers

The images for old posts are missing and I'm currently in the process of reloading them backup.  The images for the old posts lived on our company servers and recently they were rebuilt and my images never made them backup.  I'm hoping to have everything back up by Monday.  Just another thing to add to my list of things to do, which seems to keep growing all the time.  

Cheers 

Updated Schedule posted. 

In the past year I've done a lot of speaking at Code Camps up and down the East Coast and Tulsa Techfest which was a blast.  At a conference in DC I meet Becky Isserman from Kansas City area and we kept in touch and after awhile she joined the B&R team.  When she told me about the Kansas City "Day of .NET" I was really excited about it and told her if they had room I would love to come out and speak on SharePoint or InfoPath.  I was delighted to here that they had a spot still open for the SharePoint track and told her to count me in.  Tonight (Thursday) I made the trip from New York City to Kansas City and now getting ready for my session on Saturday morning.  The session that I'm speaking on is "Building and deploying custom SharePoint Application pages (_layouts) with Visual Studio 2008" and the first time that I did this session it was really bad (sorry NOVA) because I didn't spend much time on it until the day of but now I've done it a couple more times and it's really getting close to being a polished presentation and I'm feeling that Saturday is going to be the best one so far.  There are some really great people speaking at this event and the full schedule is below.  I'm really glad that I have the first session because then I can attend all the other sessions and not worry about my presentation.  It's time for me to get some sleep so I can be semi productive tomorrow.  If you're planning on attending the event on Saturday, I hope that to bump into you and talk some SharePoint.

Cheers 

Today I was building some simple deployment CMD files for a project and one of them was for creating a site.  I used the stsadm createsite command and picked all my parameters that I wanted and hit enter.  Below is the command that I used.

stsadm-o createsite -url "http://servername/fc/forms central" -owneremailname@somewhere.com -ownerlogin domain\username -lcid 1033 -sitetemplate SPSPORTAL#0 -title "Forms Central" 

After a few seconds it came back with the below error message and this definitely caught me by surprise.

Another site already exists at http://servername.  Delete this site before attempting to create a new site with the same URL, choose a new URL, or create a new inclusioin at the path you originally specified.

After reading the error message a couple times I knew the first part wasn't true because there was no site at that URL path but then it dawned on me that the second part of the error message was the answer to my problem.  The URL that I specified has a "Managed Path" and I forgot to create it before running the createsite command.  So, I went out to the online STSADM technical reference guide and found the stsadm addpath command.  I opened up the CMD file and add the following line above the createsite command and reran it and everything worked just fine.

stsadm-o addpath -url http://servername/fc -type wildcardinclusion 

I know this wasn't really a hard one but at first when I read the error message it wasn’t making any sense but after ignoring the first part of the error message the second part turned the light on for me.

Cheers