Wanna move your Lotus workflows to MOSS 2007?

February 6th, 2008 by kurtlubakla

The Microsoft Transporter Suite tool is released on 25th January. I am taking it slowly to annouce the tool, you know why? I have just noticed that the tool is released TODAY!! I'm going to kill myself Angry

Hmmhm, sorry. Let's return to our subject. This tool migrates the Lotus Domino workflows to MOSS 2007, and at the same time if you have Lotus Domino mail servers or any POP/IMAP mail server, you can migrate these mail servers to Exchange 2007.

I wish I could get a Lotus Domino customer to try this tool immediately.

Microsoft Business Data Catalog Definition Editor Installation Problem

September 18th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

I was very happy when I heard that Microsoft has released a BDC XML file creator application called Microsoft Business Data Catalog Definition Editor ( MBDCDE ) with SharePoint 2007 SDK 1.2. But my happiness did not last long Sad.

I have started the installation, but at the end of the installation I got this error: "Unexpected Error has occured. Error is 'ExecuteNonQuery failed for Database '…'. ' –> ExecuteNonQuery failed for Database '…'. –> An exception occured while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. –> Invalid column name 'id'.".

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition ( SQLExpress ) is a prerequisite for MBDCDE. When you start the installation of MBDCDE, it searches for the SQLExpress instance named "BDC". If it cannot find the instance it starts the unattended installation of SQLExpress. When it comes to the collation of the SQLExpress installation, the setup sets the collation of the SQLExpress instance according to the regional setting of the computer. In my example, my regional setting was Turkish, so the collation of the SQLExpress instance was set as Turkish_CI_AS. After the installation of the SQLExpress instance, MBDCDE installation starts, and it gives the error above because of the inappropriate collation.

As a solution for the problem, I have installed SQLExpress manually, so I could set the default collation of the installation as Latin1_General_CI_AS with the builtin wizard. I have set the instance name as "BDC" ( the name of the instance is very important ). After the SQLExpress installation, I started the MBDCDE installation, it skipped the SQLExpress installation part ( because it found an SQLExpress instance named "BDC" ) and continued with the MBDCDE installation; so the problem was solved.

And now, I am playing with my new tool. Stick out tongue

 

con Keyword and SharePoint

September 10th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

Hi All,

Everybody knows the relationship between the "con" keyword and windows operating system. This relationship is another issue on SharePoint sites.

Create a subsite and give "con" as the url of this site, and see what happens when you browse to the created site. It responds with an empty body tagged html.

Anonymous Access to InfoPath Forms

August 28th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

I wrote an artice on using anonymous access for InfoPath forms on MOSS 2007. You can read it by clickling here

Profile Import Error

August 27th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

I have faced an interesting bug on a customer's site.

We were trying to configure the user profile import feature of MOSS 2007. We used the default configuration since the MOSS 2007 server was a member of the domain. We were getting a warning ( god, I can't remember the warning detail, so I can not write it here, stupid me Angry) that says, it can not connect to the domain controller ( it was something like "access denied" and "object not found" or stuff like that ).

The solution to the problem is so hard to find. Let's say we have a domain like "nezihtinas.local". MOSS 2007 defines the domain as "NEZIHTINAS.LOCAL". When the import stars, it converts the domain name to lowercase, and you expect it to be "nezihtinas.local"; but you're wrong Stick out tongue. The lowercase conversion depends on the regional setting of the MOSS 2007 server. Since our server's regional setting was "Turkish", the domain name is used something like "nezYhtYnas.local", so MOSS 2007 can not find the domain controller and it gives a warning.

We changed the regional setting of the MOSS 2007 server to "English" and the problem was solved. There are many bugs in the product but this one was tough though Stick out tongue.

Automaticly starting workflow problem on document libraries

August 20th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

You have to be very careful when you want to create custom workflows on WSS 3.0 ( and also on MOSS 2007).

There are two steps of uploading a document on a document library. On the first step, the user uploads the document, and on the second ( optional ) step the user enters the needed information for the extra columns that are defined on the document library or the selected content type of the document.

There is a problem in WSS 3.0's design. Let's say you have created a workflow and you set it to start automaticly after the document is uploaded. After the user uiploads the document in the first step, the workflow starts without waiting for the user to enter the needed information for the extra columns on the document library or the selected content type of the document.

So, in this situation, there are two possible actions that SharePoint takes:

  1. If the extra columns are optional, the workflow starts after user uploads the document, and while the user enters the values of the extra columns, since the workflow automaticly started, it reads the values of these extra columns as empty, so, the workflow does not work properly if the workflow uses the values of these columns as parameters.
  2. If at least one of the extra columns is required, since the workflow can not read the empty value of the required column, after the first step, the user gets the "An unexpected error occured" error before the user can enter the values for the extra columns; so the second step fails. After the error, the document stays checked out to the user. When the user wants to check in the document, SharePoint does not let this action because there are empty valued required columns. When the user wants to edit the properties of the document, the user gets the same "An unexpected error occured" error since the workflow locks the colums.

There is no way out of this issue. By design, when an automaticly starting workflow is configured for a document library, if the library has a required colum, the workflow and document uploading processes lock each other.

As a solution, you may think of pausing the workflow for some time as a first action and letting the user enter the required column values for the document, but I have tried that one; sorry Sad, it does not work for required extra columns.

I want to share someting I faced. I have created a document library which holds two content types of documents. In my automaticly starting custom workflow, I get the content type of the uploaded document. I uploaded my document, and the system redirected me to the second step. But, while I was selecting the content type of my document, the workflow already started, and it used the default content type of the document library as the content type of my document. I had a required extra column on my non-default content type and I have set this content type as the default content type. I uploaded anothet document, and surprise!! Stick out tongue I got the "An unexpected error occured" error.

I have no idea if this is a bug or this is by design. I hope this situatin to be a bug, so it can be fixed with a service pack. But, if it's by design, we may have to wait for the next version of the SharePoint products.

Filtered Lookup Column V 0.1

July 17th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

In SharePoint technologies, we use lookup column for referencing a column value of an item in a list. The most expected issue for a lookup column is to filter the items in the looked up list for selection. To accomplish this, we need to develop a custom field for SharePoint.

Thanks to Antons Mislevics post on a forum about the common problem of developing custom fields for SharePoint, I have developed a filtered lookup column which uses views for filtering. There are some issues that must be solved in this version, which are:

  1. When you change the lookedup column value of the lookedup item in the source list, the change is not reflected to the destination item.
  2. The data of the lookedup column is not rendered as a hyperlink.
  3. No documentation is avaliable Stick out tongue

To solve these issues, I have to focus on the deeper levels of CAML and define a custom RenderPatterns tag for the field definition. I will be studying on these issues, and when I'm done, I'll be uploading the 1.0 version of the column. Till then, you may use the 0.1 version by clicking this link…

Using client operating systems for MOSS development

July 15th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

We are forced to use the MOSS 2007 installed Windows Server 2003 environment for development. Since, this is not applicable in most scenerios, I have tried to prepare my Windows XP computer as a MOSS 2007 development environment and I the result was a success. I have explained the details of preparing a client operating system as a development environment for MOSS 2007 in this article. Check it out…

Pause or delay activities error on MOSS 2007

July 15th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

I wanted to pause a workflow for some time in a workflow for MOSS 2007. The activity pauses the workflow but the next activity is not executed. After some time, the workflow stops with an "Unhandled Exception" error. I had created the workflow with SharePoint designer and used the pause activities, and I thought that it may be a bug of SharePoint designer, but I also tried to pause the workflow with Visual Studio 2005's delay activities, the result was the same.

After some googling, I have found that this was a bug of .Net Framework 3.0, and there is a hotfix released at this location. The title of the hotfix is "A Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation timer does not resume correctly after reloading a workflow.".

I get crazy when I try for hours to solve something, and find a bug as the cause of the problem. But, life is going on Stick out tongue.

Error while configuring Reporting Services Add-in for MOSS 2007

July 15th, 2007 by kurtlubakla

Some of us might get the "A new member could not be added to a local group because the member has the wrong account type" error while configuring the Reporting Services add-in for MOSS 2007.

When you click on the "Grant Database Access" link on the "Application Management" tab of the central administration site, on the upcoming page, you have to give the server name and instance name of the report server. If you installed MOSS 2007 on a domain controller ( we do that for testing, instructing purposes, never do it on a real life scenerio Super Angry ) you have to give the full DNS name or IP of the report server. If you give onyle the computer name of the report server, you get the error I specified error. So be careful about this situation.Stick out tongue