Putting my 2010 project work aside, I was asked to programmatically update each users "User Profile" that was a member of a group (Distribution List) in active directory. In my case, I had to create a custom user profile property called "location". I then had to map each person from their DL in AD to a location in their user profile.
So if I am based in "Glasgow" and I am in the Active Directory Group "Scotland_All" - they wanted some code to update my user profile property, on a mass scale (12,000 users)..
I did some googling before i set about the task but didn't find very much so figured i'd post a quick how-to.
First I went through active directory to get all users that were a member of X group.
Once have the users details, I start updating their user profile. This is done using the object model so the console app was run locally. It can be done via web services but with so many users and transactions I found that simelar tasks would time out..
//take user names, check they have a user profile - if they do, update "localtion" field
Having started a new contract last month working predominately on the infrastructure, administration and consultancy side of SharePoint I am missing development a little but in the meantime getting my hands very dirty with some work i'll be blogging in the near future.
I have been particularly working with Powershell, Hyper-V and SharePoint.
Recently I designed and implemented a full new Development lab infrastructure which allows new stand-alone SharePoint 2010 servers to be deployed in Hyper-V with almost 0 configuration from the deployment agent.
In otherwords, I have scripted and automated the entire process using Poweshell with the following processes automated:
New Virtual Machine created from clone of base server
New virtual machine configured
Powershell scripted configuration of the operating system installation
powershell scripted configuration of networking, renaming the machine, joining the domain
Powershell scripted configuration of a Sql server 2008 pre-deployment image
Powershell scripted installation of SharePoint 2010
Powershell scripted configuration of SharePoint 2010 configuration database and new farm
powershell scripted deployment of new SharePoint 2010 farm
powershell scripted deployment of web applications and site collections
powershell scripted configuration of SSP
Powershell scripted configuration of search services
powershell scripted server security configs, terminal services and so forth
powershell scripted assignment of Alternate access mappings to allow remote access
Basically a fully functioning development lab, fully scripted and deployed in less than 1 hour with no manual overhead for the user other than initiation the process.
I hope to blog most of the process, in particular the scripts them selves and while many other people have deployed similar scripts, the dynamic nature of this type of deployment means they can be re-used in many scenarios.
It's come time to get a new work laptop - I've always been a DELL man, having worked there twice in my career - first as a tech support guy for their laptops and onwards into software.
I was looking at the DELL XPS laptops and reviews. My old one was an XPS M1730 - At the time I got it one of the best laptops on the market. Was fantastic for gaming, Virtual machines, had a huge screen but it was also exceptionally large and heavy. It was also quite flashy with glowing vents and XPS logos etc. The screen was amazing and had a really high resolution for a laptop. This allowed me to work without feeling constricted.
Having reviewed all the newer "slicker" XPS laptops I am torn between the new XPS 17 laptop. It looks really sleek, has a great spec and doesn't require weightlifting training to carry it around!
Nice hi res screen, good graphics card and sound engine along with a fairly good spec.
however.. At the same time, I am a huge fan of Alienware. I own the Area51 ALX Desktop - easily the most powerful, coolest looking home gaming computer on the market and I am tempted to go for the new Alienware M17x Laptop
Everything about this laptop is "cool" - its extremely powerful with a standard build of 6gb of ram, a TB of hard disk space on a raid array. I7 processor with. its also very durable and the screen is not only 1200p but has 3d capability.
I'll decide at the weekend which one I am going to buy - I like new toys and from a work perspective; either of these laptops will handle pretty much anything I throw at them. The only drawback is the price. The alienware is almost £1000.00 more expensive!
*edit:
Went with the XPS :)
2.93 ghz CPU i7 Quad Core 16 GIG DDR 500 GB Hard Drive Windows 7 Ultimate 64BIT 3GB Graphic Card Built in Wireless DVDRW / BluRay UK Spec USB 3.0 Technology 9 Cell Battery JBL 2.1 Designed & Certified Speakers +Waves MaxxAudio® 2.1 Audio: 2 X 5W + 12W sub-woofer 22W Total Integrated Camera 15 Months McAfee Anti Virus Computrace LoJack so it can't get pinched :)
Just thought i'd share an absolutely fantastic post on setting up User Profile Sync in SharePoint Server 2010
As the guy says, there are tones of "guides" and tuition on this available on the net but hopefully landing here, or following here (all 2 of you) will save you the hassle. -All credit to the author, of course.
SharePoint and Google Analytics: Track external downloads and who’s downloading them
Loads of posts available explaining how to track downloads from document libraries and lists but not external links or content links written into HTML Content fields in publishing pages. After some time fiddling around with different ideas this very basic little script can be adapted to most requirements.
My requirement was simply to track forms based authenticated users downloading PDFs using Google analytics and build a report on it. The challenge was that the downloads being tracked could be document libraries, lists, external links or files sitting in IIS (don’t ask..)
<%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %>
<script type="text/javascript">
var loginName = "<%= SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.LoginName %>";
In my case i put the <script> into my page layout and in the html fields on the page, I would add the link with the onClick event. This worked perfectly.
My client has a custom public facing Web Content Management SharePoint solution on the web. Their requirement is that within certain areas of this public site searches submitted by users only search the current area they are in.
To achieve this; a Search Scope was created specific to each site using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Shared Services provider. A search scope defines a subset of information in the search index. Normally used in the context of allowing a user to select a search scope when performing a search in order to restrict search results to within that search scope. Typically, search scopes encompass specific topics and content sources that are important and common to users in the organization and selection of the desired search scope is done using the standard SearchBox web part for MOSS providing a drop down to the user.
In our scenario; searches are taking place from one central input control on the Master Page of the site collection and our search scope selection is based definitively on the current area of the site in which the user performs the search.
Use Example: If a user navigates to: http://sharepointsite.com/subsite/contentsite/. Our user is in the current site “contentsite” which in this case is a site collection defaulting to the “/pages” with no document libraries, lists or additional content as it is a public facing SharePoint site. When a user submits a search from this site his returned results should be all pages and documents within the Trustees site and its subsites without returning unnecessary SharePoint content.
Defining Search Scopes for Public Facing SharePoint Site
our site is a public facing WCM (Web Content Management) version of SharePoint and configuring search on this site is more advanced than on an out-of-box Intranet or publishing solution. Standard SharePoints search results include all content of the site, its subsites and all of the resource content such ass CSS, JavaScript, XSL, Images, Administration list, User Profiles and more. For public facing site the search experience must only return relevant results based on the content and context of the web site.
Search Scope Configuration
Searches using these scopes will return anything that is in the content source “Site” AND (the content is a publishing page OR the content is a document). If you need to know more about defining content sites, click here
The logic of these rules are as follows:
Include = OR
Require = AND
Exclude = AND NOT
The ‘contentclass’ property specifies what type the indexed item is and will be automatically available for any content item in SharePoint. The two types that we are specifically targeting are:
STS_ListItem_850 (Publishing Pages)
STS_ListItem_DocumentLibrary (Documents)
SubsiteA
Title:
SubsiteA
Description:
Search scope specific to SubsiteA site & subsites
Rules
Behavior
Folder = http://SharePointSite.com/SubsiteA
Require
contentclass = STS_ListItem_850
Include
contentclass = STS_ListItem_DocumentLibrary
Include
ContentSource = Site
Require
Search Field Customisation
Determining which search scope is to be used is done programmatically. Search queries are inputted using a field on the master pages of the site rather than an independent control on the page or web part. This means that on the event where a user submits a search it will execute a search query against the Enterprise Search in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 service by encoding the query in a URL and posting it to the custom search page.
When doing this we are passing two parameters: http://SharepointSite.com/Utils/Pages/SearchSite.aspx?k=Keyword&s=SubsiteA
K=”Keywords” – The keywords submitted by our user
S=”Scope” – The scope which will be used to run our query against
Posting from master page
Before implementation of this solution, the search button event posted just the keyword to the search centre producing a site collection level search:
This code utilises the Microsoft SharePoint 2007 development API first of all opening a connection to the current site. Once the connection is open the Site Title and the Parent Site Title are stored.
The code then checks if the Site Title or Parent Site Title matches the conditions that it is one of our site level search enabled sites. At which point it passes the extended url string to the search centre including which scope to use. In our case any searches within the upper level subsite area and all of its subsites are included. A more specific rule can be created by removing the parentsite condition.
NOTE: The name of the scope being used must be identical to the Title of the search scope and case sensitive. An invalid scope title passed into the query will return zero search results with no error.
Deployment
Presently the above code is deployed by being produced on each master page used by selected pages in the scope of this implementation. For future implementations it may be more appropriate to develop and install a custom SharePoint Feature which processes all search queries across the entire site. This would be viable on a larger scale implementation where by each site (every site) had predefined processes and search scope requirements.
The scope of this implementation is focused on the above pages and does not justify the design, development, deployment and testing requirements of implementing a site wide custom search handler feature although that would probably be the best way to do it.
Automating the process of installing SharePoint 2007 Application Templates
The application templates supplied by Microsoft are almost considered to be a standard feature of SharePoint. Anyone looking up SharePoint will come across them and inevitably want to try them out, if not deploy them to a large scale environment!
If you have not installed these templates before, its worth a go doing it manually.
The installation typically involves copying or downloading the files onto the SharePoint server, running stsadm -o addsolution -filename -title -immediate/local -allowgacdeployment. which doesnt sound like alot but when you have 20 of these, and 20 uploadable templates it gets a tad tedious.
see here for more information There are several bat files you can download which do a mass install, but they don't do individual installs, they don't do mass removals and a couple of them are quite poorly designed..
This system:
optionally installs the application template core
presents a menu to install all & individual templates or deleting them
writes to a log so you can check why something might have failed
is commented through out for easy editing
Automation I do these templates alot, there is usually a day put aside to configure all of the templates and test them but from now on, installing these templates where needed will be an addition to my SharePoint install routine. Automation of this task comes int he fashion of a .BAT file, its light - took 10minutes to develop, can be edited on a whim and does exactly what it supposed to so i saw no reason to get VS out and start writing an installer as such.
The purpose of this post is to tell you about how the bat file installs the application templates and how to edit the file if you wish, if your just looking to download the file - click here.
GOTO :CORE The first thing this bat file asks when you run it is "Has APPLICATION TEMPLATE CORE been installed already?" - This is because i don't like the idea of running checks from a bat file and further more, i don't like the idea of re-installing the core every time we install a template, this will lengthen how long each install takes etc so its asked immediately and should be the first thing the user does. If a user isnt sure, i've suggested installing it anyway. once the user has selected Y, they won't see this question again until next time they run the bat file.
If the user selects "N" for No, then the application template is installed by the bat file
set fname="ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp"
set ttle="Application Template Core"
SET STS="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe"
echo.
echo Adding Solution: %fname%
%STS% -o addsolution -filename %fname%
echo.
echo deploying solution: %ttle%
%STS% -o deploysolution -name %ttle% -allowgacdeployment -immediate ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO Copying app bin content.
ECHO.
%STS% -o execadmsvcjobs
ECHO.
ECHO Ready to reset IIS.
iisreset -noforce
ECHO.
ECHO CORE HAS BEEN INSTALLED
ECHO.
pause
The application template has to be installed for the templates to work, its the first thing an admin should do before installing the templates. The line marked red indicates a field which should be edited, in some instances you will need to select -local instead of -immediate. Now our menu:
GOTO: INSTALLALL As it says on the tin, you can now install ALL application templates, install individual application templates or start removing them from the system. NOTE: Application template core is not removed
this is done like so:
:installall
CLS
SET STS="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe"
FOR %%G IN (\templates\*.wsp) DO (
ECHO %%G start
%STS% -o addsolution -filename %%G
%STS% -o deploysolution -name %%G -allowgacdeployment -immediate ECHO %%G end
ECHO.
ECHO.
)
SET STS="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe"
FOR %%G IN (\templates\*.stp) DO (
ECHO %%G start
%STS% -o addtemplate -filename %%G -title %%G
ECHO %%G end
ECHO.
ECHO.
)
%STS% -o execadmsvcjobs
ECHO.
ECHO Ready to reset IIS.
PAUSE
iisreset -noforce
ECHO.
ECHO Jobs complete.
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO Back go menu
ECHO.
PAUSE
GOTO :Start
This installs all of the application templates from within the TEMPLATES folder, it does both the .wsp files and the .stp files using a separate command. %STS% -o execadmsvcjobs is used to then run any jobs that are backed up by SharePoint (happens alot) and then its all finished off with an IIS Reset.
You'll have to monitor the bat file as it installs these templates to check that no errors occur, if an error does occur it continues on with its tasks and won't alert you. If you don't have 5 minutes to watch this process then check the log.txt file which is output and make sure everything installed successfully.
GOTO :INSTALLINDV Another cool feature of this tool is the ability to quickly install one or more of the application templates required at a time, when you select this in the menu you'll be presented of a numbered list of all the templates and you can decide which ones to install.
Each template has its own command line call, and its own properties, which are passed into one of two method type installation processes called either :installindv or :installwsp. An example of an stp file install would be:
:add20 set fname="\templates\TimecardManagement.stp" set ttle="Timecard Management" GOTO :InstallIndv
once this is complete, the user is presented with the menu and that template is installed. If a user attempts to install the same template again, they will get an error saying that it already exists.
adding -force to %STS% -o addtemplate -filename %fname% -title %ttle% would resolve this issue and do a clean re-installation of that template. Alternatively remove it and re-add it.
an example of a wsp (SERVER ADMIN TEMPLATE) is:
:add21
set fname="\templates\AbsenceVacationSchedule.wsp"
set ttle="Absence Request and Vacation Schedule Management "
GOTO :Installwsp
%STS% -o execadmsvcjobs
ECHO.
ECHO Ready to reset IIS.
iisreset -noforce
ECHO.
ECHO Back to selections
ECHO.
pause
GOTO :addselect
The main difference between the installation of a server admin template and a site admin template is simply that a site admin template just has to be added to the site template store while a server admin template has to be installed and added to the global assembly cache before it will be run and "trusted" by SharePoint.
GOTO :REMALL The application templates can now be removed in full, again - this won't remove the application template core and DOES NOT REMOVE ALL TEMPLATES. the remove all option only removes SERVER ADMIN TEMPLATES as it uninstalls them. to remove the site admin templates:
Log into your SharePoint site as the site Administrator.
From the Site Actions drop-down menu in the top right,
select Site Settings.
Under the Galleries section, select Site templates.
In the list of site templates, find the application template you wish to remove and click the Edit link.
Confirm that this is the application template you wish to remove. If so, select Delete Item.
Click Ok to confirm the deletion.
The application template is now unavailable to SharePoint sites and has been removed from your SharePoint site template gallery.
Our bat file removes all server admin templates individually like so:
:Remallwsp
SET STS="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe"
echo.
set fname="AbsenceVacationSchedule.wsp"
set ttle="Absence Request and Vacation Schedule Management "
echo retracting solution %fname%
%STS% -o retractsolution -filename %fname% -force
echo Deleting solution: %ttle%
%STS% -o deletesolution -name %ttle% -force Now that they have all been removed. they have to be re-added and won't appear in the site templates gallery. Further to that, if the application templates are removed in full, then any sites created from these templates will no longer work.
GOTO :END
Now that you can see how the bat file works and how to edit the very basic properties of it, you can go ahead and write your own solution to performing these tasks.
Of course, you can download mines here, but i take no responsibility for it. Feel free to contact me for advice with it but please use at your own risk.
