How to detect SharePoint platform is MOSS or WSS?

SharePoint platform wasn't show special thing to determine MOSS or WSS is running currently. But we can check the feature in feature collection to detect the default feature for MOSS. When we install MOSS, there are 2 features as default in MOSS flatform:OssNaviation and Publishing. Just check these feature, the code snippet look like:



 private bool CheckMossOrWss()
        {
            bool isMOSS = false;

            SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
            {
                SPFeatureDefinitionCollection features = SPContext.Current.Site.WebApplication.Farm.FeatureDefinitions;
                SPFeatureDefinition docSetfea = features.FirstOrDefault(f => (f.DisplayName == "DocSet" || f.DisplayName == "Publishing"));
                 
                isMOSS = (docSetfea != null);
           
            });
            return isMOSS;
        }


Hope this help.

Working on locked site in site collection

Sometime we need to go through each site in site collection to update the properties bag, or whenever we need to loop on all site in site collection to do something, the code is simple like this:

foreach(SPSite site in webapp.Sites)

{

    //TODO: your code here

}

Everything works fine if Administrator did not lock any site in site collection. The administrator can go to Central Administration -> Application Management -> Site quote and lock, then perform the locking for one of site in site collection. Of course the code you won't work correctly and throw an exception:

Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: Access to this Web site has been blocked.Please contact the administrator to resolve this problem. ---> System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x81020071): <nativehr>0x81020071</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>Access to this Web site has been blocked.Please contact the administrator to resolve this problem.   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.OpenWebInternal(String bstrUrl, Guid& pguidID, String& pbstrRequestAccessEmail, UInt32& pwebVersion, String& pbstrServerRelativeUrl, UInt32& pnLanguage, UInt32& pnLocale, String& pbstrDefaultTheme, String& pbstrDefaultThemeCSSUrl, String& 

To avoid the exception happens and the code will still continue if the site cannot access to, we should use the try/catch block to bypass the error:

foreach(SPSite site in webapp.Sites)

{

     try

     {

           //TODO: your code here

     }

     catch(Exception ex)

     {

         //Log the error here to know which site cannot be accessed

     }

     finally

     {

          //if you have an opening site to get the property from SPWeb, please close before dispose SPSite object

          site.Close();

          site.Dispose();

     }

}

The code above worked fine and everything seems to be right, but it's not the best practice here for a large site collection. Assume we need to loop for more than 1 thousand site in site collection, it's for sure that the code above is not good because everytime exception happens, the object exception must be initilized and go through final block to close and dispose object model. 

In this topic, I would like to check if the site cannot be accessed, we will bypass and continue on another site, the code will change:

foreach(SPSite site in webapp.Sites)

{

                FieldInfo fi = typeof(SPSite).GetField("bitField", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);

                if (fi == null)

                {

                    continue;

                }

                SPSite.BitField bitField = (SPSite.BitField)fi.GetValue(site);

                //check if locked site

                bool IsReadLock = (bitField & SPSite.BitField.readLock) > (SPSite.BitField)0u;

                bool IsWriteLock = (bitField & SPSite.BitField.writeLock) > (SPSite.BitField)0u;

                if (IsReadLock || IsWriteLock)

                {

                    continue;

                }

                //TODO: Your code here

}

Now, there is no try/catch block to receive the exception but there is no exception in this case, because we don't go and work on locked site.

Any another suggestion are welcome.

Hope this help.

Properties or AllProperties of SPWeb / SPWebApplication

Properties and Properties Bag may be differently if you are working on SharePoint. Especially for to update and remove data from their collection.

If you want to add

webApp.Properties.Add(p1);

That means you just add a propery to Web Application's properties and SPWeb's properties bag. However, if you remove this key out properties list, like following the code:

webApp.Properties.Remove(p1);

That means you just remove p1 out from SPWeb's properties bag, and in Web Application's properties is still existed. So, at the next time, you will never add or after sucessfull adding, nothing is added into SPWeb.

So, the best practice is always update or remove from both properties to be sured the system works correctly.


Add Properties


web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;


//Add property if not exist

if (web.AllProperties[strPropertyKey] == null)
{
       web.AllProperties.Add(strPropertyKey, strPropertyValue);
}




if (web.Properties[strPropertyKey] == null)
{
       web.Properties.Add(strPropertyKey, strPropertyValue);
}



web.Update();
web.Properties.Update();
web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;

Update properties



web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;


web.AllProperties[strPropertyKey] =  strPropertyValue;


web.Properties[strPropertyKey] = strPropertyValue;



web.Update();
web.Properties.Update();
web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;

Delete Properties


web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;


web.Properties.Remove(strPropertyKey);


web.AllProperties[strPropertyKey] =  null;


web.Update();
web.Properties.Update();
web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;

Hope this help.

How to delete a site with all sub-sites

SharePoint does not allow user delete the site which has many sub-sites existed. That means if there are many sub-sites are still working, and user try to delete the parent site, the error will throw exception. Here is the piece code to help delete the parent site with long operation.



private void DeleteAllWebs()
        {
            SPLongOperation.Begin(delegate(SPLongOperation longOperation)
            {
                try
                {

                    int lCID = base.Web.Locale.LCID;
                    uint language = base.Web.Language;
                    int uIVersion = base.Web.UIVersion;

                    string layouts = Utilities.DetermineLayoutsUrl(base.Web.ParentWeb, this.Context, false, false);

                    this.DeleteWeb(base.Web);

                    string queryString = string.Concat(new string[]
   {
   "c=",
   lCID.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture),
   "&ui=",
   language.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture),
   "&uiv=",
   uIVersion.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
   });
                    longOperation.End(layouts + "webdeleted.aspx", SPRedirectFlags.UseSource, this.Context, queryString);


                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    logger.Error("DeleteCommunity", ex);
                    throw ex;
                }
            }
            );
        }

        protected void DeleteWeb(SPWeb web)
        {
            if (web.Webs.Count > 0)
            {
                foreach (SPWeb subweb in web.Webs)
                {
                    try
                    {
                        DeleteWeb(subweb);
                    }
                    finally
                    {
                        if (subweb != null)
                            subweb.Dispose();
                    }
                }
            }
            if (web.Exists)
                web.Delete();
        }


Hope this help!

Synchronous between 2 site collections to make a backup data

There was many ways to create a backup for your site collection from content-database. For the others purpose, you will find out the best solutions for you situation, and in this sort topic, I will show you how to create a backup content of site collection in disaster case or crashing data.

Content Deployment Path is a part of tool using in SharePoint Server 2010 to sync data from source site collection to destination collection. Source and destination site don't need to be in the same farm server, they may work on other farm but between 2 farms must have a connection. That means you have to have an account can access to destination site collection.

There are a lot of jobs created and sometime it make your system to be slow down or not responding, however it actually only happens for the very first time running.

One more thing need to be warned, that is, if you are performing on crossing server farm, you should take a time to manage security between the farms because SharePoint requires transfering data by secure socket network, if so, you must go to the Central Administration to reconfig Content Deployment Settings to do:
- Enable listening between the sever farms by setting Accept incoming content deployment jobs
- Select Do not require encryption option if you didn't work on SSL administration

After create an Content Deployment Path, you will see the item in the list, and create a job to perform action.

Conclusion: you can monitor the deployment jobs in Central Administration section, and manage all jobs in the setting page. Note: please don't set the schedule too short to avoid the conflict data between 2 jobs in the same path.

Series solutions on document management for officer - Part 3

At the previous posted, I recommended 2 solutions for officer employees. SharePoint 2010 OOTB has not supported enough components to work on documents especially about document management and collaboration. Security is also an important thing and could not separate from content management actions. If there are many actions on the same document at the same time, it would be conflicted when user perform saving execution. Collaboration is the best solutions to solve this problem and for now Microsoft had released a lot of components for collaboration such as Office Web, SharePoint Online (Office 365),... However, another scenarios often has been used frequently in office that is to share some documents (items) in the same department or another departments.

This topic will reduce (save ) your time when you work on document/content management. I produce this component to help you share (items) your documents, it allows:
- Share item(s) to one or many people with specific permission, the permission list is taken from SharePoint permission level.
- Privately item(s) from another users, except for System Account and Site Collection Admin.
- Inherit from parent.

Limitation for free this component:
- Cannot share item(s) for many people with many permissions. For example, if you need to add some people /groups with FullControl and Contributor for this item.
- Cannot get the permission editing for item which are the same permission items.
- Only support SharePoint 2010

Download here

Series solutions on document management for officer - Part 2

In the previous post, I just reserved a piece of package of document management for officer. In the daily tasks, I think it's very useful if there is any robot functioning to perform our tasks. It's like a command in SQL and executes many times, sometime it makes us feel uncomfortable or tired with a boring jobs. That's why I think it's really useful for office, especially some people work in Acc Dept and HR Dept.

In this topic, I introduce a new feature in a series of small tool for officer. That's download a multiple files from document library or picture library.

SharePoint OOTB has supported already a feature named Download a copy in Copies category of Ribbon. However, to get a copy of file, user can perform by right-click on the file name and select Save file as from context menu of Internet Explorer. Of course with SharePoint, user has a lot of methods to download a copy of file, but the question is how to get many files and folder into a package? There is only way to do that is to go through every item and download, then using compressed function has supported by windows to zip all in one.

There are some limitation of free version:
- Not supported compressing all sub-folders.
- Not supported other zip type, just using "zip".

There are features of this tool:
- Allow compressing files and folders in the same level.
- Supported for SharePoint Foundation and Office Server.

It's available to download here.
(... to be continued )

Series solutions on document management for officer - Part 1

SharePoint is a portal with the strength functionalities for collaboration and content management. There are a lot of new features to improve the activities of user and support the useful tools for almost kind of user who are using SharePoint 2010. That's perfect! However, Microsoft is always only build a framework and background technology for all their product and their partners will build a product as component or build a solutions to help IT Pros or IT Manager build up a service for their business. So, there are many companies only support the solutions or consult the customer by SharePoint administration expert. I've also consulted for some companies and build the solutions for a part of or whole their departments. The best things I have after finish every contract is how to fullfill the requirment while SharePoint features are not enough to reach all situations.

Luckyly, I am a developer. This is the only one advantage and I have to think about it. if I have a budget I just only buy some widgets or components from 3rd party and select the best product to match the requirements. I think this is not difficult but the most imprtant thing is how to mantain the product id there is many many products from another company and developer like me can not handle! In this series, I will show all you guys see some my opinions to solve a little taks but it's actually useful for IT managers, especially end-users.

This is a first topic to talk about requires' Officer, that is how to move a lot of document to another site. The limitation for free here are:

- Not support move multiple items, that mean these documents (files) still are in original list. They are not deleted after copy to new location.
- Not support overwrite method. If this feature is enable, the file is copied to the destination list will not overwrite instead of adding subfix "-(copy)"
- Not support copy the folders, it's avaible upon request.
- Not support cross-site, that means moving these files to another server farm.
- Not support sending to multiple sites

Here are the list of features in free version:
- Copy multilple items to onother location.
- All file types are supported.
- Support for both Foundation and Office Server
- Not need to install or activate Document Set feature.

Note: at the destination URL, please enter the short path, not including SitePage/Default.aspx or default.aspx

Trial version is available here. Download here. Hope this help.

How to get distinct value from splistitemcollection

In many cases, we need to get the distinct data like SQL or even only get the separately data. it will be complicated if we are working on SharePoint 2010 because of performance. There are at least 2 scenarios we have:

• Max throttling 
• Performance with large list

Now, i also have a small code to get the data for distinct:


SPListItemCollection collection = list.Items;
DataView view = new DataView(collection.GetDataTable());
DataTable result = view.ToTable(true, "[Column Name"]);


By using DataView and DataTable we can get the distinct value from list, but if it's a large list you only get Max Throtting items in a collection, others will be missing. The most important thing is this way is easy to use.

IEnumerable enumerable = list.Items.Cast<SPListItem>().Select(itm => itm["Column Name"]).Distinct();

Or you can use Linq to select the distinct value, this way will not be recommend because of performance but it will return exactly data if the maximum return records were not exceeded the Max Throttling.

It's up to you to choose any way, but hope this help.

SharePoint and SQL intergrations event

We've announced our next exclusive live chat on Facebook! Join Jesse Shiah, CEO of AgilePoint, and Gideon Bibliowicz, Senior Product Manager - Enterprise Lead for Microsoft SharePoint of Microsoft SharePoint, on December 1st at 11am to ask them questions about SharePoint and SQL integration. Any technical questions you have are fair game. Don't miss your chance to go right to the experts and learn how SharePoint and SQL benefits businesses of any size. RSVP on the event page:

http://www.facebook.com/events/179333768823652/