Thank you Microsoft

Thank you so much for the free trial for 180 days on SharePoint 2013, SQL Server and Windows 2008 R2 Standard , It was really helpful to sharpen my skills in SharePoint , Office 365 technologies . Without this offer, I would n't done this much. I was about to reinstall the another installation on my machine. But I feel guilty of doing so with out saying BIG THANKS to Microsoft . 

Thanks a lot Microsoft. 

Office Deployment Tool XML Generator

The Office 2016 Deployment Tool allows the administrator to customize and manage Office 2016 Click-to-Run deployments.

 This tool will help administrators to manage installations sources, product/language combinations, and deployment configuration options for Office Click-to-Run.

By default, an end user can download the Office 365 pro plus Software (Office 2013 or Office 2016 desktop application) from the https://portal.office.com after validating their credential on tenancy.


If they are assigned relevant license to use the Office 365 Pro plus, they can download it on their desktop , laptop or mobile devices including tablet and smart phones including iOS, Android and Windows phone.

This approach is called "Self-provisioning", But most of organization wants to control and manage this . So IT administrative guys in your organization can create the automated script to download and install the setup on their user machine.

Download Office 2013 Deployment Tool (ODT)

Once you extracted the downloaded file you will see the setup.exe and configuration.xml file in the folder.

IT guys can update this configuration file by adding the relevant XML node with attributes.

To simplify this process, Office Dev team has developed the page where you can select and type the relevant values , upon clicking the save button the XML string will be generated. You can easily copy the XML text into configuration.xml file and then install the setup.exe.

Office 365 Pro plus Configuration XML Editor

(https://officedev.github.io/Office-IT-Pro-Deployment-Scripts/XmlEditor.html)

Microsoft Delve Quick Info

Microsoft Delve is a powerful dashboard based service available with in Office365 subscription [ E1,E3,E5 and Business Premium and Business Essential].
This will bring the all documents that you working on and Sharing with you from different Office365 products such as OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online Document library.

Often Delve is to  be believed a storage kind of services like OneDrive for personal or OneDrive for Business. It just a Dashboard page to bring all the documents through Office Graph API.

In Delve, you can also manage  your  profile and organize your documents by creating the Delve Board, quick edit , sharing and filtering based on the document types and it nature.

Delve enforce the audit compliance and security , You can able to see only the documents that has been shared with you. Your private documents and conversation will not be shown to other users.

Try this link to explore the Office 365 Delve : https://delve.office.com

If your organization enabled the new features available to end user through settings (Office 365 Admin Center -->Settings--> Organization Profile -->Release Preference), you can see the Delve dashboard otherwise you will see the mysite page.

serviceHostingEnvironment serviceActivations could not be found

Server Error in / 'WCF application. The type 'WCFNameService.ClassName' provided as the Service attribute value in the ServiceHost directive, or provided in the configuration
element system.serviceModel/serviceHostingEnvironment/serviceActivations could not be found.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

And

This simple exception started to nagging me nearly 30 minutes. It error message were so clear and precise, that the name namespace in my service and the class implementation is not available.

I have double checked every thing is fine and my solution also rebuild without error and warning. Still I am not able to access the service end point.

To resolve this problem,

Open your service end point file in markup mode, hitting the F7 key is handy.
Check the Service and Code behind attributes are correctly pointing the namespace and class.

In my case, both are correct, still I am not able to access the service end point (.svc) file with ?wsdl query parameter on my IIS hosted WCF service application.

Solution is very straight forward, you simply need to "Rebuild the Solution" not just project.

Later I have realized, without rebuild the solution, I have started the IIS hosting process on my server.

Skipping this simple step, took my nearly an hour .

Hope it will be useful to someone.

SharePoint Storage and Recycle Bin - Revisit

The Recycle Bin is a location where deleted files or folders are temporarily stored ,this feature is available in every version of Microsoft Window OS.

When you purposely or unknowingly you  delete the file or folder, it will be sent to recycle bin. You can restore it later to where it was actually stored earlier.

But reminder, if you choose to delete the file through DOS command or Shift +Delete, then you cannot retrieve it .

Its a different story on recovering the file from your disk through third party software.

The same analog available on the Microsoft SharePoint too. When the user collaborating with each users, there could be a chance to create the version of the document and finally check in the major version.

This approach considerably occupies the storage space available or allocated to the Site collection.

In SharePoint, when you upload any documents or creating the page, it will be stored in the SQL table as Binary format. There will not be physical location on the SharePoint server.

you can modify the site quota by going into your SharePoint Central Administration page.

Click on Application Management link from the left hand side menu. On the Application Management Page, Click "Configure quotas and lock" on the page , select the site collection in which you want to allocate more storage.

By default "No quota" template will be applied to the site collection, that means unlimited storage available.

You can also create the "Storage quota" template by clicking the "Specify quota template".

 That will help you to manage the storage quota and send the email warning to use when the site collection reaches the specified storage.


Here I have created my own quota template, Central Admin->application Management->Site Collections->specify quota template.

I have set the 25 MB size and name the quota template. By default SharePoint 2013 team site template occupies 1.94 MB , So I can use only 23.06MB and uploaded the documents more than 15.3MB and SharePoint does not save the document that exceeds the quota template size.

Your changes could not be save because this SharePoint website has exceeded the storage quota limit, you must save your work to another location.Contact your administrator to change the quota template for the website.



SharePoint Recycle Bin always connected with your Storage quota and keep on monitoring the size of your site collection.

If any user delete the document sized 2 MB, It will go to the first stage recycle bin and storage will never gets decreased.

You can determine the SharePoint site collection's storage through this code snippet
  
using (SPSite site = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.Url))
      {
         Decimal SiteSize = new Decimal((site.Usage.Storage / 1024f) / 1000);
         Response.Write(SiteSize.ToString() +"MB");
     
      }

Another way of finding the site collection's size will be using SharePoint Designer.
Open the site collection through SharePoint Designer on the Site's Dashboard page, you can see the site the "Total storage used" underneath "Site Information".


Earlier my site collection was .2.51 MB and then added 3.13 MB sized video file to SharePoint and checked and now site collection became 5.64 MB fat.

When your site collection administrator delete the document from second stage storage will be freeze.

To manage the storage on your site collection , you can do some capacity plan and set it at your "Web application".

It precisely, help you to control, how long your deleted items can be stayed in the first stage and second stage recycle bin. To do this, Go to Central Administration->Select your webapplication-> General Settings, Under Recycle bin change these values as per your  storage capacity plan.

This process will be managed and governed by the timer job called "Recycle Bin" You can find it under "Monitoring-> Timer Job - > Review Job Definition.

If there is any problem with this timer job, you cannot able to see the correct size and track the all the site storage.

In the next blog, I will give you the brief about "SharePoint 2013 Storage Metrics" and how its useful to track and monitor of the file size and the quota of the file occupied in the site collection.

How to resolve the SharePoint 2013 Update error

One this, weekend when I am trying to open the SharePoint my local server at my home , this unusual error message popped up,

I would suggest you not to panic at this point, please follow the steps I have followed to resolve this error.

Usually this happen because of windows or SharePoint update interruption while installing the patches on your SharePoint server.

Derived method 'Requires WebPartClientScript' in type 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.TermProperty' from assembly 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublickKeyToken=71e9bcs111e9429c' cannot reduce access


As usual I have checked the below points,

1. In IIS Manager, all application pools and sites are up and running
2. On Service console, I have checked the SharePoint and SQL related services are up and running.

In my case all of the stopped and stuck.

To resolve this problem, I tried to ran the SharePoint Configuration Wizard , exactly on second step , It failed and given me the suggestion to look into the log file.

Honestly , I did not get anything from the log file to narrow down this problem.

But I recollect my previous activities on this server , Late night I was trying to update the Windows 2008 R2 SP through windows updates and it failed.

Now I have checked the Installed updates for the SharePoint 2013 on Control Panel\Programs\Programs and Features and then click the link "View Installed Updates" on the right hand side.

It shows all my SharePoint related upgrades are failed.

Now I clicked the each individual item and it gives the me the Knowledge Base with code and downloadable link. This time I have ensured all the updates are installed on my server.

This time,My server started to working correctly.

Office UI Fabric for SharePoint and O365

Microsoft Introduce the new official UI framework for SharePoint and Office 365 Development called "Office UI Fabric"

SharePoint 2013 Workflow Troubleshooting

Features of SharePoint 2013 workflows Troubleshooting.

SharePoint 2013 workflows are powered by Windows Workflow Foundation V4. Its built on the WCF Messaging functionality.

Now SharePoint workflow transform itself from process to platform.

Means WCF can communicate within machine and network level using TCP/IP and capable of communicating outside of your network using Web service call using http/https.

Windows Workflow Foundation 4 workflows are a structured collection of workflow "activities" that creates the relationship to SharePoint as "action".

To start the workflow development activities, you need to install the Workflow Manager.
This will be installed on out of your SharePoint Server. This is the new feature introduced in SharePoint for isolating the workflow process and Scaling the Workflow services for SharePoint.

You can also use the SharePoint 2010 workflow activities for backward compatibility purpose only. If you are creating the new workflow from the scratch then you should choose the "SharePoint 2013 as platform type".

To install and Configure the workflow for  SharePoint, please follow up this link

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/jj658588.aspx

I managed to install and configure it, but still I am not able to see the "SharePoint 2013 workflow" on the platform type in SharePoint Designer. It shows the below error.

"The Option for the SharePoint 2013 workflow platform is not available because
the workflow service is not configured on the server.
Please contact your server administrator."

First you need to ensure the "Workflow Service application proxy" has been associated with your Web Application in central administration page as shown in this image.

To resolve this problem,you need to register the workflow service to your site.

Register-SPWorkflowService -SPSite 'http://win-236tjq4buqi' -WorkflowHostUri 'https://localhost:12290/'

After this command , I have received the error "The root of the certificate chain is not a trusted root authority"

To resolve this problem, you need install the SSL certificates on the server where Workflow Manager installed and also your SharePoint Server configured to use the SSL.

Please see this MSDN link that helps your how to install the workflow Manager Certificates on the SharePoint 2013

Another troubleshoot , An error says " The underlying connection was closed:An unexpected error occurred on a received with Client Activity Id.

Resolution for this, You have to use the WorkhostUri URL without HTTPS

Finally, I am managed to install and configure the "Workflow Manager" on my server and set to go for exploring the SharePoint 2013 Workflow Development.

For best practices, you should not install the Workflow Manager on the server where the server elevated to AD and SharePoint installed machine.

For development purpose, you can use the workflow without SSL and ignore the above best practices.


After this, I was trying to create the simple workflow that logs the message the workflow history, My workflow started and few minutes it cancelled its self  automatically.

Upon digging the reason for this cancel problem further through fiddler, the workflow attached to the list failing with HTTP 401- Unauthorized despite I am logging in as Administrator and configured the Workflow Manager with the administrator account.

Workflow need to have read and write permission on . To elevate this permission to workflow, you need to activate the site feature called "Workflows can use app permissions"

SharePoint Framework (SPFx-) Development steps

This is continuation of my previous post, "SharePoint Framework (SPFx) - Development setup".

Once you set up all the required installation to start the development activities,
You will see the folder structure in your folder. Here in my case, I have ran it on administrator folder in the C drive.

Now you need to run this web part template created by yeoman, Technically you need to package it and push to SharePoint ,
Gulp is the main component and it will packaged with all certificates to run on the browser.

Type the below command in PowerShell command

gulp trust-dev-cert

It will install the certificate on your local machine, trust it when prompting on windows alert box.

gulp development certificate installation

Now you are ready to run the SharePoint Client WebPart into SharePoint Workbench.

To do this,

type the command :   gulp serve

It will start the browser with localhost server

SharePoint Framework (SPFx) - Development setup

Its been a great journey to creating the JSOM , REST API with combination jQuery  call in the SharePoint and Office 365 developmentt activities [Provider Hosted App and SharePoint hosted Apps] , Now Its really the time to look into embrace latest SharePoint development framework "SharePoint Framework (SPFx).

SPFx based on purely client context based without any server control usage on the SharePoint.
All the controls you will developing using the html5,JS,CSS and other Javascript based UI extensions like NodeJs,yeoman,gulp ,npm and webpack.

Yeoman is a client side solution generator for SharePoint package.

In next post, I am going to write all the tool chain technologies and how the SPFx differs from its predecessors paradigm.

Just keep in mind , SPFx is all about enhancing the user interface (UI) and user experience with modern web development technologies such as (TypeScript,Yeoman,Gulp,NodeJs,npm and webpack).

Ready to dive or dirty your hand in these technologies you often requires the solid play ground, I mean your own development environment with equipped all installation.

Here is the steps to follow.

Install the NodeJS - Download from here :
https://nodejs.org/en/download/ [Go with default settings, including PATH]

Install the Visual Studio Code (VS Code - Lightweight editor to implement the tool chain based application for all platform including Linux and iOS).

https://code.visualstudio.com/download

Post installation of the NodeJS and Visual Studio Code

Open your windows powershell and type the npm - v

ensure you installed the version 3.10.10 or greater.

Now type the following command in powershell to install the yeoman gulp

Step 1,

npm install -g yo gulp

after completion of the above command, you will be see it like

Installing the Yeoman gulp for SPFx development setup

Step 2,

You need to installl the microsoft SharePoint related package . Type the below command 

npm -install -g @microsoft/generator-sharepoint

This will install all packages those are required for SharePoint Client Webpart creation.

Step 3,

Create your webpart by creating template

Type yo @microsoft/sharepoint

Here is the output window of mine,

SharePoint Client WebPart - Yeoman template

Now you are ready to play around your webpart. This will create the directory structure for all source code, and you can start your journey.

Here is my successful  webpart creation

Read further on the next post : SharePoint Framework (SPFx) - Client WebPart Implementation

DLP Exchange Online - Office 365 Suite

Data Lose Prevention (DLP) a policy allows the Exchange Administrator restrict the corporate email which is carrying the critical and sensitive contents is not going beyond its network.

This policy allows the administrator to define rules and policy to monitor and reporting of such activities within their network.

This feature available on Microsoft Exchange  Server 2013 , Microsoft Exchange  Server 2016 and Exchange Online (part of Office 365 suite)

SharePoint 2016 new features

Here are the few new features of SharePoint 2016, I came across and tried it at my server.
I am going to update this post continuously,

As we know, its digital era and users want to use data from the different legacy system including physical files from the network or bring files from the outside of their network either downloading or uploading.

So file size and its transfer rate per minute is always concern over the poor network bandwidth.

To address the problem, Microsoft comes up with new protocol called "Background Intelligent Transfer Service" (BITS)
.
What is BITS ?

Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is a component of Microsoft Windows XP and later operating systems that facilitates prioritized, throttled, and asynchronous transfer of files between machines using idle network bandwidth.

BITS uses idle bandwidth to transfer data. Normally, BITS transfers data in the background, i.e., BITS will only transfer data whenever there is bandwidth which is not being used by other applications. BITS also supports resuming transfers in case of disruptions.

In SharePoint 2013,You can upload the file maximum size doesn't exceed 2GB to SharePoint document library or SharePoint list. Always remember this upload will use the HTTP protocol and your IIS server also should manage these irrespective of the configuration and load balanced on your SharePoint farm. It always huge pressure on the server.

Now SharePoint 2016, this size limitation has been increased up to 10GB using BITS.

OneDrive for Business uses these technology to store your documents on cloud through its client tool.

Updating the Farm administrator Password

Recently , I have been receiving the password update notification popup on my server. As I installed the trial version of all SharePoint related software on my local computer, Always I am free to play around some configuration testing around IIS , SQL Server and SharePoint.

This time, I tried to update the farm administrator password using SharePoint provided interface in SharePoint Central Administration GUI instead of using the old companion STSADM or through PowerShell Command.

Post updates, I have received the error on accessing the SharePoint site and Central Administration site and error was the currently logged in user must have access to SQL Server.

To resolve this issue,

First I have checked all the services related to SharePoint has been started .

In IIS, checked all web application and application pools has been started and restarted it.

Still I am getting the access denied error to SharePoint site and SharePoint administrator site.

This time , I have manually updated the SQL server and SQL Server Agent's account with latest password and reset the IIS.

Now, my SharePoint server is up and running without any error.