On WSS or MOSS it's easy to retract and remove a solutions but sometimes the process gets stuck. And when this happens we have only one solution to the problem.

When the solution status maintains for along time the message show above whe need to delete the job that is attached to this retraction process.

To do that we need to go the Timer Job Definitions, find our solution retraction Job and click on it's description.

After clicking on the Job description this page will show up, click on the delete button.

Now our solution is free with no Job attached to it and we can run the stsadm -o retractsolution command.

Sometimes when i want to delete a MOSS WCM Page Layout, Sharepoint Designer tells me that the Page Layout has page attached to him even when i know that there is no page attached to it.

 So how can i delete this Page Layout ?

What i did to delete it is very simple, create a new folder on SharePoint Designer drag or cut and page the Page Layout file into the new folder. Then delete the folder.

Simple isn't it :).

JavaScript ASCII Converter
http://www.vortex.prodigynet.co.uk/misc/ascii_conv.html

Text to ASCII Utility
http://getyourwebsitehere.com/jswb/text_to_ascii.html

There is a new Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK April 2007 Revision available.

Site: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms441339.aspx
Download SDK: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05e0dd12-8394-402b-8936-a07fe8afaffd&displaylang=en

Additional Resources

Official
SharePoint:  http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/
Enterprise Content Management:  http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm
Forum:  http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=328&SiteID=1
Discussion Groups:  http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver

More
SharePoint Blogs: http://www.sharepointblogs.com/

WF + SP2007
http://www.developer.com/net/net/article.php/3652346 
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/12/01/developing-workflows-in-vs-part-7-summary-and-final-thoughts.aspx

Conventional wisdom says to beat your competitors you need to one-up them. If they have 4 features, you need 5. Or 15. Or 25. If they’re spending X, you need to spend XX. If they have 20, you need 30.

While this strategy may still work for some, it’s expensive, resource intensive, difficult, defensive, and not very satisfying. And I don’t think it’s good for customers either. It’s a very Cold War mentality — always trying to one-up. When everyone tries to one-up, we all end up with too much. There’s already too much “more” — what we need are simple solutions to simple, common problems, not huger solutions to huger problems.

What I’d like to suggest is a different approach. Instead of one-upping, try one-downing. Instead of outdoing, try underdoing. Do less than your competitors to beat them.

I want to discuss five things you need less of that you’re likely to think you need more of.

Finally the trilogy is complete.

Now lets see what can this exames do for me and for the company i work :).

I hope it makes us continue to search for more and more knowledge about SharePoint 3.0 and share it with the community.

Today at TechDays, on Lisbon, i was talking with some colleagues of mine about the SharePoint 2007 exams that we've made on January.

When i came home, Suprise Suprise !!! there was an email from Microsoft, saying that i've passed this one to.

Great two down one more to go :)

VS 2005 comes with an XML Editor that provides IntelliSense for XML based on a schema. To leverage this feature, add a new XML file in Visual Studio and select the Properties window for the XML. In the Properties window, select the Schemas property.

In the browse dialog box, choose Add and select the WSS12.xsd schema from the following folder: \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML\wss12.xsd. Once the schema has been set, the XML Editor within VS 2005 provides validation and IntelliSense for writing XML.

If your Live Messenger Blocks on your Windows Vista RTM

Try this:
- Click start
- Type: cmd
- Right-click cmd.exe when it appears under Applications
- Click Run As Administrator
- Type the following: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
- Press enter
- Restart your computer

To check autotuning is disabled repeat the above but type: netsh int tcp
show global.

I was looking for a list of functional areas and a comparison of features available across the different editions of Microsoft SharePoint Product and Technologies.

This page has that comparison, and is very helpful to understand what whe can get on each Microsoft SharePoint Product edition.
This is very important to give to the client the best edition that matches is needs.

To view this comparison click here.

From JOPX Blog

1. Built on top of ASP.NET 2.0

• Web Parts (But also master pages, provider model, ….)
• Site template with behaviors + different components (web parts, lists, etc …)
• Use plain ASP.NET 2.0 when you really need full control on all aspect of the platform. When reproducibility/reusability is a key use WSS or MOSS
• Web part manager, web part zones - ootb present in WSS/MOSS

2. Data, metadata, features, content types …

• Rich Object Model
• Features - possible to hook up your own code and UI - activate and deactivate features - more flexible model

3. InfoPath Forms Services

• Forms are everywhere
• InfoPath Forms Services offer server side generation and handling of forms

4. Workflow

• Workflow technology
  • Business run on business processes
  • Succesfull executing business process is a key success factor for companies
  • Easier for developers - provide another layer of abstraction - easier to visualize complex software problems
  • More time on business process development and less on plumbing (state management, etc …)
  • Code creap - with every change - easier to build modular software

5. Excel services

• Great charting and calculation engine
• Now server-side calculation engine available for browser based spreadsheet viewing & interactivity (It's like DDE all over again but this time on a scalable server platform)

6. Business Data Catalog (BDC)

• XML metadata driven engine to integrate your backend systems (CRM, ERP systems, …)
• OOTB web parts present - Business Data Detail WebPart, Business Data List Web Part, ...
• Will evolve into Line of Business Integration (LOBi) and Office Business Entities (OBE) - unification of the programming model on the client and server side of Office

7. Lots of other stuff : document and storage enhancements, Business Intelligence solutions possible, multi language support, wikis and blogs, ...

O Sharepoint 2007 vem com uma nova classe, muito útil, para executar CAML queries.
Devem estar a pensar, mas o Sharepoint 2003 também tinha a SPQuery :) !

 A principal diferença é que esta nova classe permite efectuar queries que devolvam informação de todas as listas ou document libraries existentes nos sub sites ou de todos os sites de uma site collection.

Exemplo: Devolver os documentos adicionados a todas as document libraries de todos os nossos sites hoje.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities;
using System.Data;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls;
namespace TodaysDocuments
{
    public class TodaysDocuments: WebPart
    {
        protected override void RenderContents(System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer)
        {
            SPSite site = SPControl.GetContextSite(this.Context);
            SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();
            SPSiteDataQuery qry = new SPSiteDataQuery();
            string date = SPUtility.CreateISO8601DateTimeFromSystemDateTime(DateTime.Today);
            qry.Query = "<OrderBy><FieldRef Name='Title' /></OrderBy>" +
                       "<Where><Geq><FieldRef Name='Created' />" +
                       "<Value Type='DateTime'>" + date +
                       "</Value></Geq></Where>";
       
            qry.Lists = "<Lists ServerTemplate='101' />";
            qry.ViewFields = "<FieldRef Name='Title' />";
            qry.Webs = "<Webs Scope='SiteCollection' />";
            DataTable tbl = web.GetSiteData(qry);
            writer.Write("<b>Documents added today to the sites.</b><HR>");
            DataGrid grid = new DataGrid();
            grid.DataSource = tbl;
            grid.DataBind();
            grid.RenderControl(writer);
        }
    }
}

Este código foi retirado do blog de Patrick Tisseghem's Blog [MVP SharePoint]

Se repararem a linha, qry.Lists = "<Lists ServerTemplate='101' />", serve para que a query apenas
devolva informação de document libraries.
Para além de usar o template id, também é possivel definir quais as listas, através do nome das mesmas, que se pretende pesquisar.

Acabo de encontrar no blog, de Amanda Murphy, dois PDF's com os procedimentos e imagens para a actualização Sharepoint 2007 para B2TR.

Os links são:

MOSS 2007 Beta 2 to B2TR Patching Procedure (with screenshots)
WSS 3.0 Beta 2 to B2TR Patching Procedure (with screenshots)

Mail Merge no Word usando como base uma lista de Sharepoint, parece interessante ?

Se sim, e se já experimentaram, chegaram à conclusão que não é possível.

Existem duas alternativas:

1)    exportar a lista para Excel e usar o Excel como datasource

2)    criar uma base de dados Access e fazer uma linked table para a lista de Sharepoint, usando esse Access como datasource.

A primeira é obriga a fazer sempre a exportação para Excel (ou a abrir o Excel e fazer refresh dos dados) antes do mail merge, bad idea

A segunda não funciona porque o Word diz que não existem tabelas no datasource.

No entanto, podemos fazer a segunda alternativa funcionar através dos seguintes passos:

1)    Ele mostra o erro: The data source contains no visible tables. Pressionamos OK.

2)    Ele mostra a mensagem: Could not find ‘C:\Contactos.mdb’. Pressionamos OK.

3)    Aparece uma janela de login para a ligação à BD Access. Pressionamos o botão Database...

4)    Aparece uma janela para selecção do ficheiro MDB. Seleccionamos o ficheiro Access e pressionamos OK.

5)    Volta ao ecrã de login. Pressionamos OK.

6)    Aparece uma janela para seleccionar a tabela de onde queremos importar a informação para o merge. No entanto não aparece nenhuma tabela. Pressionamos o botão Options...

7)    Aparece uma caixa de opções. Activamos a opção Synonims e pressionamos OK.

8)    Aparece a dita tabela na lista de tabelas da BD :D

9)    Daqui para a frente segue-se o processo normal.

Estes passos foram realizados em Word 2007, mas este procedimento deve ser semelhante em Word 2003 e Sharepoint 2003 (já que foi descrito com resposta a um pedido de ajuda referente à versão 2003).

Obrigado André.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnservice/html/service07222003.asp