I have fixed a few issues with older IE versions, and addressed a few other issues in the AC and Casc plugins. You find the full change log here.
Please let me know if you find any issues in this new release.
Alexander
I have added an example code to use in a dashboard to let the user select from any chart created in the same site. You find it here.
Please read the “ReadMe.txt” file in the zip file.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Alexander
I have updated the SPJS Charts for SharePoint package with a few bugfixes related to using Google Maps and problems validating the Google Maps API key.
See complete change log here: http://ift.tt/2iirjX8
Best regards,
Alexander
Document management provides users with an environment that includes many features for collaborative document creation.
This is a quick one, and I’m only posting because it took me a while to find the answer with my Binglage. It’s one of those things I know I can do, but I forget the syntax.
Image from pixabay
Most of the answers I found for this involved going into settings (or running Powershell or writing code – overkill!) to exclude content from results semi-permanently. That’s not what I want in this case.
Say you want to search SharePoint for a specific phrase. In my case today, we want to change the name of the Intranet, so I was searching for the old Intranet name. This would give me the places where documents or pages contained the old Intranet name so I could change it in the content.
When I simply searched for “Old Intranet Name” in Everything, I was getting back a whole lot of documents we put together as we were building the Intranet. The phrase in those documents was irrelevant, so I really wanted to exclude those documents from my search results.
The trick is to exclude the specific path (or any other useful attribute value) so that I reduce the result set down to what I really want. It works basically the same way most search engines do; if you put a value after a dash character, content with that value will be excluded from the results.
"Old Intranet Name" -path:http://ift.tt/2tvs69Z
The trick is that you need to know what the specific attribute – which in SharePoint is a Managed Property – you need to use for the exclusion to work correctly. In this case, I wanted to exclude an entire path, meaning any document which lived at that URL or below.
While I’m working in SharePoint Online today, this works going all the way back to SharePoint 2007, I believe.
Good search skills are critical in today’s world, so knowing how to exclude content is just as important as including it.
It so happens that Brian Jackett (@BrianTJackett) just tweeted something analogous, so here’s a good reference that shows more possible options.
TFW you realize that you can use advanced search queries to find all documents without a Compliance Tags :) https://t.co/1WjnYKdy57
— Brian T. Jackett (@BrianTJackett) July 24, 2017
I have made some further enhancements to the require.js loading method for “Custom JS files” in the Custom JS tab. Based on the feedback, I’m fairly confident it will work as it did before Microsoft decided to include require.js in SharePoint online.
Read the change log to see all changes.
Please post any feedback on this version in the comments below, or in the forum.
Best regards,
Alexander
Thanks for the patience!
I have now released a new version with a few changes, and hopefully a final fix for the loading custom js files problem. See change log and additional help text in the Custom JS tab in DFFS.
In addition to the hopefully last fix on the load custom js files, I have made a a hopefully significant improvement on the load time in large forms. Please report back how the load time changes with this new version.
Post your findings below, or use the forum.
Best regards,
Alexander
I was reading through one of Bob German’s (@Bob1German) recent (and great!) posts about Porting REST calls to SharePoint Framework and thinking about a conversation Bob, Julie (@jfj1997) and I had at our “salon”* when I was reminded of a very specific truth about our working days.
Image from New York City Department of Transportation on Flickr
I would venture to say that some ridiculously high percentage of all of our time developing with SharePoint and Office 365 comes down to figuring out why we can’t get something to work due to authorization or authentication issues. Some say this is a necessary evil to create enterprise software, but I say it’s an unnecessary problem. Unfortunately, documentation about auth stuff tends to be tremendously opaque and difficult to understand. In the same way that I expect the server to be there and I want nothing to do with it directly, I want auth stuff to just work – easily.
Sadly, this has never been the case with so-called “enterprise-class” software. On some level, I think the obtuseness of auth is there on purpose to keep the bar high enough to exclude lower end hackers. Unfortunately, we all get caught up in the kudzu of auth as a corollary effect.
Image from NatalieMaynor on Flickr
Ok, so that’s my editorial on auth. I wish it were easier, but it isn’t.
Recently in one of my Single Page Applications (SPAs) for a client, we kept getting weird failures in posting data to a list. Weird mainly in that I never saw the error on my end, my client is far away, and screen sharing is tricky due to the technical proficiency on that end. I’m not dissing anyone; they are great at what they do, but debugging JavaScript with me is not in their wheelhouse.
If you write software, you know that the worst bugs to squash are those that happen sporadically, and only on someone else’s machine – especially if you don’t have direct access to that machine. As usually, though, it was simply me doing something dumb with auth – which is not easy. Have I mentioned that?
Basically, the problem was that while I was fetching the request digest from the page (this is a “classic” page in SharePoint Online), I wasn’t ever refreshing the token. In this application, people move around from page to page enough and use the application for short enough time periods that we simply hadn’t seen the problem in testing.
Smart people will think “Marc’s an idiot” on this one, but I play the fool so you don’t have to.
The code comes from a service I use everywhere in my applications for this particular client. It’s basically a set of utility functions that are useful when you’re using Angular with SharePoint. I’ve built the SPA using AngularJS (1.x), so my code below represents that. However, similar logic can work with jQuery or whatever instead of AngularJS and $q. I adapted it from some Typescript code Julie was using, so credit there, with a bit of add on from me. I’ve added a bunch of comments and have also left some of the console logging I used in debugging – but commented out.
// Initialize with the token in the page in case there's a call that happens before we get a fresh token
self.requestDigest = document.getElementById("__REQUESTDIGEST").value;
// This function makes a call to the contextinfo endpoint to fetch a new token
self.getRequestDigest = function (subsite) {
var deferred = $q.defer();
// This request must be a POST, but we don't need to send any data in the payload
// i.e., it's a very simple call
var request = {
url: subsite + "/_api/contextinfo",
method: "POST",
data: '',
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
"Accept": "application/json;odata=nometadata"
}
};
var success = function (response) {
deferred.resolve(response.data)
}
var error = function (response) {
deferred.reject(response.data);
};
$http(request).then(success, error);
return deferred.promise;
}
// We call this function once when the page loads to set up the refresh looping
self.refreshRequestDigest = function (subsite) {
// Set the default delay to 24 minutes in milliseconds
var delayMilliseconds = 1440000;
// Call the function above to get a new token
self.getRequestDigest(subsite).then(function (contextInfo) {
// console.log(new Date() + " Old token:" + self.requestDigest);
// Save the new token value in a variable available to all controllers using this service
self.requestDigest = contextInfo.FormDigestValue;
// Calculate the number of milliseconds which will be two minutes before the old token will expire
delayMilliseconds = (contextInfo.FormDigestTimeoutSeconds * 1000) - 12000;
// console.log(new Date() + " New token:" + self.requestDigest);
// console.log("Waiting for " + delayMilliseconds + " ms");
// Use setTimeout to set up the next token request
setTimeout(function () {
self.refreshRequestDigest(subsite);
}, delayMilliseconds);
});
};
// And here's the initial call to get things rolling. We need a token for the current site
self.refreshRequestDigest(_spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl);
The data we get back looks something like this:
{
"FormDigestTimeoutSeconds": 1800,
"FormDigestValue": "0xD22256967BAA39D5860CF0E812BE4AD0E018603851720D0E57581E1D1EBE8394865FF07EA3905DA1FE21D19D25BD6369B9D4F0F47725FBBB5AA7B3DE4EB54BAA,28 Jun 2017 15:21:52 -0000",
"LibraryVersion": "16.0.6621.1204",
"SiteFullUrl": "http://ift.tt/1H2SDM5",
"SupportedSchemaVersions": [
"14.0.0.0",
"15.0.0.0"
],
"WebFullUrl": "http://ift.tt/2v9ZG6t"
}
The thing we care about most is the
FormDigestValue, as that’s what we use to make our POSTs to SharePoint while it’s valid. But also note that there is an attribute in the returned JSON for
FormDigestTimeoutSeconds. That’s the number of seconds that this particular token will be valid. In every tenant where I’m using the code, that works out to be 30 minutes. However, there may well be a setting which can change that, or Microsoft may change the time span on us. Because of this, I use the value to calculate how often to request a new token: T-2 minutes.
I’m pretty sure that there are pages in SharePoint which don’t do this correctly, so I’m not feeling like too much of an idiot. For example, when we click on an “app” – usually a list or library to you and me – in Site Contents, it opens in a new browser tab. Very often when I go back to that Site Contents page – when it has been sitting there for a while – I’ll get an unauthorized error. This may be fixed by now, though it has happened to me a lot.
I hope this is helpful. Using functions like this, we can make the whole auth thing easier on ourselves – and there zero reason to need to write this code from scratch every time. Store int in one place and if anything changes, you’ll have one place to fix it later.
Datapolis (www.datapolis.com), a leading provider of business software announced today the launch of a new tool for creating and managing business processes in Office 365.
Datapolis Workflow 365 is a tool which enables the user to easily create advanced workflows in Office 365. The heart of the solution is a graphical workflow designer based on State workflow architecture, which provides a great environment for creating even the most complex workflows.
No programming knowledge is required to create Datapolis Workflow 365 workflows. Thanks to a clear graphical interface for building processes, the solution is understandable both for business users and IT Pro.
By separating the business logic from the rest of the process, the workflow diagram is very legible, making it easy to implement changes and optimize existing processes.
The unique feature of Datapolis Workflow 365 is the very intuitive user interface that is fully integrated with Office 365 interface so that participation in the process does not require any prior training.
“Datapolis Workflow 365 significantly enhances Office 365 business value as a collaborative environment. With the DW365, you can quickly and easily organize your document flow and tasks in an organization that uses Office 365 on everyday basis” – Pawel Bujak, CEO Datapolis
Trial of Datapolis Workflow 365 is available in the Microsoft Office Store: http://ift.tt/2t8oFK6
About Datapolis
Datapolis is the SharePoint workflow company with hundreds of customers across all continents serviced by a network of partners. Datapolis delivers innovative software which empowers organizations to automate business processes.
Please visit www.datapolis.com for more information.
The post Datapolis Workflow 365 is now available in the Office 365 Store! appeared first on Absolute SharePoint Blog by Vlad Catrinescu.
I love Document Sets. There, I’ve said it. They help us solve so many important business needs, it’s crazy. Unfortunately, because telemetry tells Microsoft that not very many people use Document Sets, they haven’t gotten any love for a long time. On the other hand, I hate the 5000 item limit in lists and libraries because they prevent us from getting good work done for our end users.
With Document Sets, we essentially get folders on steroids. We have a canvas available to us in the form of the Welcome page, which is a Web Part Page we can customize to our heart’s content. That means we an add images, other Web Parts, script (using a CEWP or CSWP), whatever we need in order to make the Document Set sing for our users. We can even push specific metadata from the Document Set level down into the documents within it.
While on the one hand it’s great that Microsoft hasn’t given them any love for a long time (they haven’t broken anything), it will be great when they eventually get the “modern” sheen. (See my comment about not breaking anything – that’s key if the “modern” version is to get any use.)
Today’s episode comes courtesy of one of my clients where we’re using Document Sets to the max in SharePoint Online. It’s a life sciences R&D operation, and we’re tracking most of their significant research data in Document Sets, among other mechanisms. It’s a really cool project, and I often wish I could show more of what we’re doing.
When we first built one of the main libraries using Document Sets as the basis (with 14 different Content Type variants inheriting from Document Set and each other), we talked about how many items would ever be in the library. At the time, 5000 seemed like a huge and distant number. Even so, I added some indices to hedge against it, but clearly not enough indices. It’s been over two years using this system, and we’ve done a bunch of development on top that we couldn’t have predicted originally.
Recently, a couple of things stopped working the way they should. Even though we never expected to, we recently went over the 5000 item limit in the Document Library – 5099 is the current count. Here are summaries of the issues and how we fixed them. The ever wonderful and talented Julie Turner (@jfj1997) came to my rescue on some of it, as you’ll see.
This has historically been a HUGE problem. Once you cross the 5000 item limit and actually NEED indices on some of your columns, you haven’t been able to create them. When you tried to do so, you’d get an error telling you that you had more than 5000 items, so you couldn’t add an index. Helpful. Off to Sharegate to move some content out, fix the indices,then Sharegate the content back in.
In our Document Set instances, we were getting some errors where we were making REST calls to retrieve items related to the current one. (The Document Sets connect together in pathways of experiments, and we store the ParentID for each item’s parent Document Set.) The REST call would only retrieve one item from the library, since there was a filter:
"&$filter=ParentID eq " + ID,
Unfortunately, ParentID wasn’t indexed, so we were getting 500 errors back from our REST calls. Sigh. I assumed I’d need to shuffle some content out to add the index.
Just on the off chance, I went to add the index anyway, even though we were over the 5000 item. Never hurts to try, right?
Miracle of miracles, I was able to add the index without SharePoint batting an eye. I haven’t had a chance to test this elsewhere, but in this tenant I was able to do what previously was impossible.
If this is indeed the new normal, our lives have indeed gotten a lot easier.
We can add indices to lists and libraries with over 5000 items!
In any case, it solved my immediate problem. Maybe I shouldn’t talk about it so loudly near the tenant in case it changes its mind.
No one – and I mean no one – likes to see this message on a SharePoint page:
This view cannot be displayed because it exceeds the list view threshold (5000 items) enforced by the administrator.
To view items, try selecting another view or creating a new view. If you do not have sufficient permissions to create views for this list, ask your administrator to modify the view so that it conforms to the list view threshold.
We were seeing this horrible messaged in the List View Web Part at the bottom of the Welcome Pages. Since I have code running in the page, I wasn’t 100% sure that it wasn’t my fault.
Since the List View Web Part is only showing documents for this Document Set, it should only want to show a handful for each Document Set; nowhere near 5000. I was starting to think the Document Set was fundamentally broken by design.
Luckily, Julie was online and I asked her to take a look. She had the answer, and probably saved me hours trying to figure out why this was happening.
Her suggestion was to make sure the view doesn’t have “Show all items without folders” set to true. Sure enough, when I checked the view we were using for the Document Sets List View Web Parts, that was the setting. Julie pointed me to the article Manage large lists and libraries in SharePoint, specifically:
If you choose the Show all items without folders option in the Folders section when you create or modify a view in this list or library, you must then use a filter that is based on a simple index to ensure you don’t reach the List View Threshold.
Aha! For whatever reason over the years, we had set that very setting, and that was the problem. By turning that off, everything was right as rain again.
This leads me to a little known thing about Document Sets: we can have a different view at the root of the library than inside the Document Sets. In fact, since you can inherit from Document Sets, you can have a different view per Document Set-based Content Type!
In fact, I was just reminded this yesterday from reading a post from Cameron Dwyer. Sure, it’s a setting on the Document Set settings page, but frankly, I’ve rarely noticed it.
The setting isn’t visible in the Document Set settings page when you create the Content Type, because you aren’t yet in the context of a list. Once you have enabled the Content Type on a list, you’ll see the additional settings.
Here’s the bottom of the Document Set settings in the Content Type definition:
and here’s the bottom of the page in a list context:
Note that the options are slightly different. In the list context we can choose a unique view for the Document Set-based Content Type. That means in my library, I could have 14 different views of the Document Set contents, one per Content Type, should I choose to do so.
Document sets are awesome. The 5000 item limit is not.
There is unfortunately one issue with the latest version related to loading of custom js files and the custom js textarea.
If you have a rule triggering onload that calls on a function loaded in custom js, this rule will fail with an error message telling that the function isn’t defined.
The reason for this is that the loading of the require.js script that’s used for loading all other dependencies will defer the loading of custom js for a few milliseconds – enough for the rules to trigger.
I have tried to fix it, and a new version of the DFFS_frontend_min.js file can be downloaded here.
Please let me know if this fixes the issue, and I’ll wrap up a full package of files with this patch.
Sorry for the inconvenience,
Alexander
Over the past few years, there has been a shift on organizations collaboration requirements. Initially, implementing SharePoint was an internal thing only, then over time it would turn into an Extranet or maybe a Public facing web site. For the work, I have done over the past 10 years, the decision to move in this direction was actually tied to business verticals.
I have fixed a few bugs and changed a few things based on feedback on the previous release – you find the change log here.
I have updated the DFFS user manual with the latest changes, but please let me know if I have forgotten something.
To all that has reported issues with the latest version: Please test to see if the issues have been fixed, and either reply to this post, or follow up on the forum post where the issue was first raised.
I want to thank all who has provided feedback on bugs and enhancement proposals, and I want to send a special big thanks to Rudolf Vehring for his help with testing this and previous version – and for providing valuable feedback and suggestions.
Alexander
I have gotten some feedback on the latest version, and are working on investigating and resolving these issues. See the log below for status:
There are some problems loading external files like jQuery UI in the “Load these files before executing the Custom JS” textarea in the Custom JS tab.
I have looked into it, and on SharePoint online it’s related to the require.js module loader being loaded with SharePoint. This makes for example jQuery UI detect the presence of require.js and therefore registers itself as a require.js module and not on the global jQuery object.
I’m still not done investigating, but you may try this approach: http://ift.tt/2uBJlr3
You may also try jQuery UI v1.10.4 instead of v1.12.1 as the 1.1.0.4 version is the last one without detection of require.js / AMD.
Depending on the trigger type used in rules, some of the operators in the dropdows should be disabled. This doesn’t always work so you may end up with selecting a operator that isn’t actually valid for that trigger.
When using this option in the new DFFS installer, the overlay and loader was still referred from the default “DFFS” folder. This will be fixed to all files are loaded from the custom folder.
This will be in place in the next release.
The “Only if the field is empty” checkbox failed to save the checked state, and therefore this setting was not respected in the rule – overwriting a previously set value in case this rule was triggered.
I changed the default tooltip icon from the built in “/_layouts/images/hhelp.gif” to a unicode character. Unfortunately this unicode character wasn’t available in all platforms – effectively rendering the icon as a square. I have added a new default tooltip icon in the next release.
Due to the investigation of the custom js loading issues I have fallen a bit behind on replying to forum posts and other feedback on the latest release – and also haven’t been able to get the user manuals updated with the latest changes to DFFS and the plugins. I hope to get up to speed during the weekend.
Best regards,
Alexander
I got a question on one of my recent posts –Retrieving Multiple SharePoint Managed Metadata Columns via REST – from Chris Parker (@ChrispyBites) about whether the same technique would work in SharePoint 2013. I wanted to know the answer, so I borrowed Julie’s SharePoint 2013 VM and gave it a whirl. It was a little odd, so I figured I’d document what I saw here.
Using the trusty /_vti_pvt/service.cnf endpoint (See Christophe Humbert’s [@pathtosharepoint] post How to get your Office 365 version number – it works on premises, too), I found that Julie’s VM is running this version:
vti_encoding:SR|utf8-nl vti_extenderversion:SR|15.0.0.4797
The REST APIs were rolled out and enhanced over time to SharePoint 2013, so check your version before you take anything I say here as “fact”.
I created a new Site Collection and added a simple Custom List with two Managed Metadata columns: Tax1 and Tax2. Julie already had some Term Sets set up, so I simply pointed at them for testing.
I did a REST call in the browser to see what I could see. Note that I said “in the browser”. Before I put a new REST call I need to think through in my code, I’ll often just fiddle with it in the browser. The use the free XML Tree extension in Chrome so I can make sense of the XML I get back. This only works for GETs, but that’s the most common thing we usually do.
/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Taxonomy%20Test')/items
I saw that my columns existed, but they had weird InternalNames:
Once I knew the weird column names, I could do this:
/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Taxonomy%20Test')/items?$select=OData__x0054_ax1,OData__x0054_ax2
Who would have guessed at those column names???
This REST call gave me the data I expected, albeit with the weird column names:
<m:properties>
<d:OData__x0054_ax1 m:type="SP.Taxonomy.TaxonomyFieldValue">
<d:Label>1</d:Label>
<d:TermGuid>beba4549-fdce-4229-9fb9-fd32428cccb8</d:TermGuid>
<d:WssId m:type="Edm.Int32">1</d:WssId>
</d:OData__x0054_ax1>
<d:OData__x0054_ax2 m:type="SP.Taxonomy.TaxonomyFieldValue">
<d:Label>2</d:Label>
<d:TermGuid>095b8a7b-6578-4d97-8604-dac930e85e50</d:TermGuid>
<d:WssId m:type="Edm.Int32">2</d:WssId>
</d:OData__x0054_ax2>
</m:properties>
Still sort of worthless, just like in SharePoint Online. Adding in the
TaxCatchAllcolumn with
$expand:
/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Taxonomy%20Test')/items?$select=OData__x0054_ax1,OData__x0054_ax2,TaxCatchAll/ID,TaxCatchAll/Term&$expand=TaxCatchAll
<entry>
<id>d70660e1-70d6-4ad7-9f1c-443e8fd70778</id>
<category term="SP.Data.TaxonomyHiddenListListItem" scheme="http://ift.tt/1aFoa69" />
<title/>
<updated>2017-07-07T14:49:55Z</updated>
<author>
<name/>
</author>
<content type="application/xml">
<m:properties>
<d:ID m:type="Edm.Int32">2</d:ID>
<d:Term>Vendor A</d:Term>
</m:properties>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>59d3588a-dbb3-4a8e-9705-9e14af5ab57c</id>
<category term="SP.Data.TaxonomyHiddenListListItem" scheme="http://ift.tt/1aFoa69" />
<title/>
<updated>2017-07-07T14:49:55Z</updated>
<author>
<name/>
</author>
<content type="application/xml">
<m:properties>
<d:ID m:type="Edm.Int32">1</d:ID>
<d:Term>Hedged Equity</d:Term>
</m:properties>
</content>
</entry>
So yes, the trick works in SharePoint 2013, but you may need to make some adjustments. Have a nice REST!
This August, I will be traveling to Australia to speak at the Digital Workplace Conference in Sydney!
While this is the 8th Digital Workplace Conference (previously known as the SharePoint Conference), it’s my first time attending it and I am really excited to talk about a few awesome topics!
My first session will be on SharePoint Hybrid, for the business user and it’s called What do YOU get from SharePoint Hybrid? There has been a lot of buzz about SharePoint hybrid recently, and a recent study has shown that half of the companies using SharePoint On-Premises currently plan to go in a hybrid model in the next three years. Here is the description:
Every time you see a blog post about SharePoint 2016, you see the word hybrid. But what exactly is a hybrid infrastructure and what features does the business user get?
In this session, we will look at SharePoint Hybrid from a business user point of view to understand what features we get out of it. We will look at Hybrid Team Sites, Hybrid Search, Hybrid Extranet sites and more!
My next session is on something that I love a lot which is PowerShell for Office 365! In this session, you will learn how to connect to Office 365 by using PowerShell, and how to manage your users and licenses, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online as well as Office 365 Groups! This session doesn’t have a lot of slides, but it has a lot of fun demos so for sure you won’t be bored!
Lastly, I have a Pre-Conference workshop on how to automate your business processes by using SharePoint! The Official Title is Automate your Business Processes with Tools from Today and Tomorrow.
Here is the description:
One of the big advantages of implementing SharePoint in the enterprise is process automation. By using Out-of-the-box workflows as well as easy to create custom SharePoint Designer Workflows, Power Users are able to automate processes, avoid repetitive tasks, and boost team productivity.
Furthermore, new tools such as Flow and PowerApps (which are exclusive to Office 365 at the moment) allow you to easily create workflows and forms, and integrate SharePoint with other systems.
In this full-day workshop, you will learn how to use SharePoint Designer, Flow and PowerApps to automate your business processes in SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online.
Hope to see you there! Check out the conference detail and all the other amazing speakers at: http://ift.tt/23GJB1r
The post Speaking At Digital Workplace Conference: Australia appeared first on Absolute SharePoint Blog by Vlad Catrinescu.