SharePoint 2013: Provisioning Reporting Services Subscriptions

In attempting to create Report subscriptions in our new SharePoint 2013 production environment, we received and error:

The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'xp_sqlagent_notify', database 'mssqlsystemresource', schema 'sys'.

Initially I thought that we just needed our DBA to grant the reporting services execution account EXECUTE rights on the extended stored procedure noted. There was a little more to the solution.

The Reporting Services Execution Account needs to have access to the SQL Server Agent but the access is granted through the RSExec role. We noticed that this role existed on the reporting services databases but wasn't on any of the system databases (e.g. master, msdb). SharePoint 2013 makes this easy to resolve! You can download a script that incorporates the execution account, adds the roles, and grants all of the proper permissions.

Simply navigate to the Reporting Services Application in Central Admin and click on Provision Subscriptions and Alerts:

 

Click on the Download Script button:

If you have database access, Open the file or Save it locally and send it to your DBA:

Run the script on your SharePoint database server:

 

 

 

The script obtains the account using a user guid. You can verify that this account is your Reporting Services Execution Account by issuing a SELECT against the SUSER_SNAME function:





After the script is run, the ability to create Reporting Services Subscriptions from SharePoint 2013 should work like a charm!

Note: If the reporting services managed account does not exist in all of your environments, you should download the script in each one (Stage, QA, Production, etc.) and run them separately.

 

InfoPath 2013: Misconfiguration of the State Service

In testing InfoPath forms in my new SharePoint 2013 staging environment, I received a blank screen with only error text:

The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service.

Misconfiguration? I didn't even have the service running. Since it was a staging environment, I usually just configure and install components as needed. I needed the State Service installed.

I found simple PowerShell commands to create the State Service here. Once you run the commands with your specific parameters, you receive the following output:

This matched to what the post showed so I knew I was good.

In Central Admin under Manage Service Applications, the State Service entry should now be shown with the Started state:

Once this happens, InfoPath Forms Services is able to render forms!


 

SharePoint 2013: InfoPath 2013 - Enabling Cross Domain Data Access

During the process of upgrading an InfoPath 2007 form to InfoPath 2013 (2010) and publishing to a staging environment, I received an error when attempting to open a new form:

A query to retrieve form data cannot be completed because this action would violate cross-domain restrictions.

The reason this happened in my case was because the form was published to staging but the data connections within the form all point to production. For this process, it was safe for me to allow cross-domain access.

To resolve this problem, navigate to Central Administration and click on the General Application Settings. Under General Application settings click on Configure InfoPath Forms Services:

 

Scroll down on the settings page and locate Cross-Domain Access for User Form Templates:

 







Simply check the box and click OK:

That's it! Your form should now be allowed to use data connections that may exist on a different farm.
 

SharePoint 2013 Search: BCS Crawl Error - Server Too Busy Exception

I recently was attempting to crawl external data using BCS. I started to receive errors in the crawl log:

Error while crawling LOB contents. ( Error caused by exception: System.ServiceModel.ServerTooBusyException An error occurred. Administrators, see the server log for more information. )

Server too busy? I knew my servers weren't pegged. Tracing the errors in the ULS logs, I found the following:

The BDC Service application Business Data Connectivity Service is not accessible. The full exception text is: The HTTP service located at http://SSRSServer:32843/c2f2c958afc44ef0a9058500c319a619/BdcService.svc/http is unavailable.

What had happened was I was actually moving the BCS Service around to different servers. I had it running on my search servers but wanted to see if I could relieve resource usage if I moved BCS to a different tier. I moved them to our SSRS servers, did some testing, but then decided to move the BCS Services back to the search servers.

The error in the ULS logs showed me that the crawl was still trying to access BCS on the SSRS Servers. A quick reboot of my search servers (running all search components except query and index so search doesn't go down) and the crawl of the BCS content continued working as normal!



 

SharePoint 2013: Producing a PDF Report from Reporting Services Integrated Mode

Scenario
We have a financial report that lives in a SharePoint Report library. The report takes a parameter named requestID . The report needs to be rendered as a PDF document.

When the developer constructed the URL, he used the RSViewerPage.aspx as follows:


http://sp2013/sites/reports/_layouts/15/ReportServer/RSViewerPage.aspx?rv:RelativeReportUrl=/sites/reports/FinancialSummary.rdl&rp:requestId=12345&rs:Format=PDF&rv:ParamMode=Collapsed

Problem
Using the RSViewerPage.aspx does not allow the generation of reports in other formats.

Solution
1. Instead of using the RSViewerPage.aspx use the report server address: http://sp2013/_vti_bin/ReportServer

2. Remove the rv:RelativeReportUrl and use an absolute URL:
http://sp2013/_vti_bin/ReportServer?http://sp2013/sites/reports/FinancialSummary.rdl

3. Pass any report parameters as themselves - remove the "rp:" :
http://sp2013/_vti_bin/ReportServer?http://sp2013/sites/reports/FinancialSummary.rdl&requestId=22188

4. Add the reporting services command to render, format as PDF, and make sure the parameter pane is closed:
&rs:Command=Render&rs:Format=PDF&rv:ParamMode=Collapsed

The fully transformed URL for our example is as follows:

http://sp2013/_vti_bin/ReportServer?http://sp2013/sites/reports/FinancialSummary.rdl&requestId=22188&rs:Command=Render&rs:Format=PDF&rv:ParamMode=Collapsed


 

SharePoint 2013 Search: Crawl Issue - SPServiceContextScope is Being Disposed Out of Order

We were experiencing "blank" search results from certain result types related to business data connectivity service content sources. When attempting to run full crawls, there would be periods of crawl issues in the crawl log:

Error while crawling LOB contents. ( Error caused by exception: System.InvalidOperationException This SPServiceContextScope is being disposed out of order.; SearchID = <<guid>> )

I figured this was causing the empty results to appear and there seemed to be no way of fixing this. I didn't want to reset all content as we have many content sources and I would spend all day trying to crawl each one. So therefore I decided to try a less disruptive approach and it worked!

Here's what I did:

1. Deleted the Content Source from the Search Service Application
2. Recreated the Content Source using the same name.
3. Run a full crawl on the content source
4. Once the full crawl is finished, repeat for any other BCS content sources.

This was very easy and it fixed all of my blank results. In addition, this process did not bring down search or remove any content. This was a great fix-in-place solution!

On completion of my full crawls, I now had no Warnings or Errors on the two content sources I recreated:

 

SharePoint 2013: Getting Around Publishing Activation Errors

This post helps you force Publishing to activate on a site collection if you are having issues doing so via the UI. While my particular scenario is specific to a certain case, the solution should resolve most Publishing activation errors.

We had a site collection that incorporated some search functionality. (If you want to create custom search templates and have them work correctly, it is best to have Publishing activated). Anyway, on this site collection, Publishing was previously activated and then one day it wasn't. Attempting to reactivate Publishing from the Site Collection Features produced an error:


The field with Id {50631C24-1371-4ECF-A5AE-ED41b03F4499} defined in feature {AEBC918D-B20F-4a11-A1DB-9ED84D79C87E} was found in the current site collection or in a subsite.

The specific feature is the Publishing Resources feature which is part of the Publishing Infrastructure. The field is a Publishing Column used to determine whether a page should be hidden from internet search engines:

This column appears to have been created within the August 2013 Cumulative Update. So my main activation issue was that this column type already existed in the site collection.

Since I was having some wacky search template issues, I really needed Publishing activated to correct the templates. We had a handy-dandy batch file from our MOSS 2007 environment which uses STSADM to activate publishing:

SET URL="http://sp2013/sites/PubSite"

SET STSADM="c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\15\BIN\STSADM.exe"
%STSADM% -o activatefeature -filename publishing\feature.xml -url %URL% -force
%STSADM% -o activatefeature -filename publishingresources\feature.xml -url %URL%  -force
%STSADM% -o activatefeature -filename publishingSite\feature.xml -url %URL% -force
%STSADM% -o activatefeature -filename publishingweb\feature.xml -url %URL% -force
%STSADM% -o activatefeature -filename publishinglayouts\feature.xml -url %URL% -force
%STSADM% -o activatefeature -filename navigation\feature.xml -url %URL% -force
pause
This still worked in SharePoint 2013 even though I should have used PowerShell:

$url="http://sp2013/sites/PubSite"
Enable-SPFeature -Identity publishing -url $url -force
Enable-SPFeature -Identity publishingresources -url $url  -force
Enable-SPFeature -Identity publishingSite -url $url -force
Enable-SPFeature -Identity publishingweb -url $url -force
Enable-SPFeature -Identity publishinglayouts -url $url -force
Enable-SPFeature -Identity navigation -url $url -force
pause

We previously had to run the batch file twice in MOSS 2007 because of the ordering of the feature activation, however, in SharePoint 2013 I just had to run it once!



 



 

SharePoint 2013: Cleaning Up Inactive Search Topologies

I woke up Saturday morning with a text message from a SharePoint friend:

"Hey, if u have 2 search topologies, one active and one inactive, can you delete the inactive one?"

I was thinking that this was only in memory since you create clones of the current search topology and then activate it after making appropriate changes. Nope. Every time you update the search topology, the previous one becomes inactive and sticks around in the search database.

You can view your inactive topologies using the following PowerShell command line:

Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology |? {$_.State -eq "Inactive"}

 



With all of my scale-out activities, I had 33 inactive search topologies - doh!

Expanding upon the previous PowerShell command line, you can easily remove all of these:

Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology |? {$_.State -eq "Inactive"} |% { Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Identity $_ -Confirm:$false};

You may run the first command line again to verify there are no more inactive search topologies.


Thanks to Chris Rumel for posting this quick PowerShell code here.


 

SharePoint 2013: Migrating InfoPath 2007 Form Text Display Issue

Scenario: You open an InfoPath 2007 form in InfoPath Designer 2013. You publish it to SharePoint 2013.

Problem:  When rendering the form in SharePoint 2013, the text and/or background colors do not display correctly:

 

 



Resolution:

1. Open the form in InfoPath Designer 2013.

2. Select some text on the form and click on the Normal font format. (It may already be selected but click it anyway).

 

 

3. You will be prompted to update the template. Click Yes:

 



4. Save the form changes and re-publish the form to SharePoint 2013.

Form rendering is now corrected:

 

SharePoint 2013 Search: Changing Refinements from 'OR' to 'AND'

By default when you implement refiners in SharePoint 2013 Search, the search experience when selecting the multi-value refinements, the filtering of the search results follows "OR" logic. If you selected SharePoint and Visio, for example, the results will display all items that either contain SharePoint or contain Visio (or both). In some cases, the user may want to combine the values such that only items that contain both SharePoint and Visio are displayed.

I started looking into this within the refinement filter code but also asked two SharePoint buddies that have been working with refinements recently if they saw a way to do this. They both came up with the same solution.

The first response and more detailed solution came from CCDW.

Here is the solution (based on modifying the system function in place) - the right way to implement this is discussed after the initial discovery:

PART I - Javascript Function

Step 1:  Locate the Search.ClientControls.js file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\template\layouts.

Step 2: Open the debug version of this file and locate the following line:

Srch.Refinement.submitMultiRefinement = function Srch_Refinement$submitMultiRefinement(name, control, useContains, useKQL) {

and change to:

Srch.Refinement.submitMultiRefinement = function Srch_Refinement$submitMultiRefinement(name, control, useContains, useKQL, searchBoolean) {

Here we are adding a fifth parameter named searchBoolean which we will use to pass in AND or OR

Step 3: Check  to see if the parameter was passed.

Add this line in the function:

searchBoolean = searchBoolean || 'OR';

If the parameter is not passed, we set it to the original default value such that it continues to work with legacy code.

Step 4: Change the last line to:

$v_0.updateRefinementFilters(name, $v_3, searchBoolean, useKQL, $v_4);

We've overridden the original hardwired 'OR', to our searchBoolean param!

PART 2 - Display Template

Step 1: Edit the Filter_MultiValue_body.html display template (technically you should create a copy and then set the refinement to use your custom multi-value refinement)

Step 2: Locate this section around line 90:

 <div id="SubmitValue">
                        <div id="submit">
                            <a onclick="Srch.Refinement.submitMultiRefinement('_#= $scriptEncode


Step 3: Change the onclick to:

onclick="Srch.Refinement.submitMultiRefinement('_#= $scriptEncode(propertyName) =#_', $getClientControl(this), _#= $htmlEncode(useContains) =#_, _#= $htmlEncode(useKQL) =#_,'AND');

Add a fifth string param to the function in the last line. Note I have added the 'AND'. The AND (or OR) will be passed as the searchBoolean param in the function within the mods made earlier.  If we don't pass anything the default is applied in the function.

Reset IIS to be sure and it should now work!!


The correct way to implement this is to copy the function and paste it into the refinement template. In working with Mikael Svenson (Microsoft MVP) on the same problem, he added these example steps (which I modified to flow with CCDW's answer):

What you would do in your refinement template is something like this:

Type.registerNamespace('TheMan.Search');
TheMan.Search.submitMultiRefinement = function(name,control,useContains, useKQL, searchBoolean) {
 // copy the contents from search.clientcontrols.debug.js
 // change the last line to use searchBoolean instead of "OR"  (as explained in Part I - Step #4 above)
}

Then change your onclicks to read TheMan.Search.submitMultiRefinement() instead of Srch.Refinement.submitMultiRefinement()

HOPE THIS HELPS!!! SEARCH ON!

 

SharePoint 2013/2016: Adding a Rich Text Column to a List Using CSOM

When you add a rich text column to a list from the SharePoint UI, you select Multiple lines of text as the type of information:

Towards the bottom, you have two type of text options, Plain text or Enhanced rich text:

After you create the column and go back in to edit the properties, you now get a third "in-between" Rich text option:

I needed to add a rich text column programatically to a list using the client side object model (CSOM). I found general guidelines for adding a field to a list here on MSDN.

Based on that post, I followed suit and constructed my code:

Field styleField = list.Fields.AddFieldAsXml("<Field DisplayName='Style' Type='Note' />", true, AddFieldOptions.DefaultValue);
FieldMultiLineText fieldMultiLineText = context.CastTo<FieldMultiLineText>(styleField);
fieldMultiLineText.RichText = true;
fieldMultiLineText.AllowHyperlink = true;
fieldMultiLineText.UpdateAndPushChanges(true);
list.Update();
context.ExecuteQuery();

I knew what the real type of Field the object was so I casted it to FieldMultiLineText. This allowed me to set the RichText property to true. However, upon generation, the settings of the column where just the regular Rich Text:

This was actually what I needed but I thought, how do you create one as Enhanced rich text? There is a RichTextMode property but it is not exposed in a FieldMultiLineText object. After trying several different things, I just decided to read the properties of a created Enhanced rich text column and use the SchemaXML to generate the new field:

Field rtfField = list.Fields.AddFieldAsXml("<Field DisplayName=\"Enhanced RTF\" Type=\"Note\" RestrictedMode=\"TRUE\" RichText=\"TRUE\" RichTextMode=\"FullHtml\" RowOrdinal=\"0\" Required=\"FALSE\" EnforceUniqueValues=\"FALSE\" Indexed=\"FALSE\" NumLines=\"6\" IsolateStyles=\"TRUE\" AppendOnly=\"FALSE\" />"
, true, AddFieldOptions.DefaultValue);

rtfField.UpdateAndPushChanges(true);list.Update();
context.ExecuteQuery();



RestrictedMode=\"TRUE\" RichText=\"TRUE\" RichTextMode=\"FullHtml\"
I believe that these properties are the key to creating it properly. I did not perform any casts as it seemed that was working against me. Once I just used the Field object and the XML, all was good:

SharePoint 2013: Creating a New List Item Using the Client-Side Object Model (CSOM)

I have been working on a provider-hosted app for SharePoint 2013 which needs to create lists and add some default items if they do not exist. I therefore am using the client-side object model (CSOM) in order to accomplish this.

It seemed like everything was spelled out for me on this MSDN post: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp179912.aspx

However, when attempting to access the Items collection on the list, I received an error:

'Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.List' does not contain a definition for 'Items' and no extension method 'Items' accepting a first argument of type 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.List' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)


I thought I was in trouble but then I noticed that the List object had an AddItem method. So pretty simple fix, I just needed to change my syntax from list.Items.Add to just list.AddItem:

This worked like a charm.

The corrected full example  should therefore be:

// Starting with ClientContext, the constructor requires a URL to the
// server running SharePoint.
ClientContext context = new ClientContext("http://SiteUrl");

// Assume that the web has a list named "Announcements".
List announcementsList = context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle("Announcements");

// We are just creating a regular list item, so we don't need to
// set any properties. If we wanted to create a new folder, for
// example, we would have to set properties such as
// UnderlyingObjectType to FileSystemObjectType.Folder.
ListItemCreationInformation itemCreateInfo = new ListItemCreationInformation();
ListItem newItem = announcementsList.AddItem(itemCreateInfo);
newItem["Title"] = "My New Item!";
newItem["Body"] = "Hello World!";
newItem.Update();

context.ExecuteQuery(); 


 

SharePoint 2013/2016: Adding a Blog to an Existing Site (without creating a new site)

Typically when you want a blog in SharePoint, you need to create a new site collection or a subsite using the Blog site template.



Sometimes it would just be easier (or nice) to have a blog right in another site such as a team site or departmental site without the need for yet another site collection or subsite to maintain. No problem.

You can easily add a blog to an existing site using PowerShell. Fire up the SharePoint 2013 Management Console and enter the following command:

Enable-SPFeature -identity "BlogContent" -url <<the url of the site>>

Next, navigate to the site in the browser and edit the home page:

From the Insert tab on the top ribbon, click on Web Part:

Select Posts from the Apps category and click on the Add button:

The blog posts now appear on your home page:







Click on the sample blog post:

You now have a blog in your existing site without having a separate subsite!

SharePoint 2013: Server Farm Products and Patch Status Issue

Problem/Scenario:
You just applied one or more patches to your SharePoint 2013 farm and are ready to run the SharePoint 2013 Products Configuration Wizard. After launching the configuration wizard you receive a patch status error:

Some farm products and patches were not detected on this or other servers.

You know you just installed these so what's going on?

Resolution:
As long as you have installed all of the same patches on all servers, your farm just needs a refresh of the product versions.

First, cancel from the configuration wizard and make sure the timer jobs are running on all servers:

 

Next, in Central Admin, select Monitoring from the left-hand navigation and click the Review Job Definitions link under Timer Jobs:

 

 

On the Job Definitions page, scroll down and locate the Product Version Job:

Click on the Product Version Job link to open the job definition. Click on Run Now at the bottom of the page:

 

 

Now run the SharePoint 2013 Products Configuration Wizard again. You should be able to run it fully without any issues.

 

SharePoint 2013: Moving Central Admin to a New Drive

Check out the whole SharePoint 2013 Solution Series
New Titles Added Weekly!

This post steps through the high level process of moving the Central Administration (Central Admin) web site to a different drive with all of the details screenshots available in my SharePoint 2013 Solution Series Guide.

By default, the Central Administration web site is created on the C: drive using the default inetpub web site location. Many times administrators would like all of the web sites to run on a different drive, such as E:, since C: is a System Drive. While creating Web Applications, you may specify the location; the creation of Central Admin does not give you that option. You can easily move Central Admin to a different drive following fairly easy steps. (The same steps are possible in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.)

Basically all you need to do is Extend the Central Admin web application. In doing this you specify a new port and location for the web site. This is where you specify a location other than the C: drive. Then remove SharePoint from an IIS web site selecting the original Central Admin web application name.This removes the original web site from the C: drive. After this is completed, run the SharePoint 2013 Products Configuration Wizards such that the Central Admin port is updated.

 

That's it! In less than 10 main steps you can easily move Central Admin to a different drive and insure that there are no web applications running off of the C: system drive. Once again, the same steps are possible in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 as well.

 

Get all of the exact steps, details, and screenshots in my SharePoint 2013 Solution Series guide:

Check out the whole SharePoint 2013 Solution Series
New Titles Added Weekly!

 

 

 

 

SharePoint 2013: Preventing Users from Editing Their Profile

While it might be nice to have users keep their information up-to-date in their profile, many times companies and organizations like to keep Active Directory (AD) (or an employee database that may feed AD) as the main source for user information. Therefore, in SharePoint, they may not want the user population to be able to edit their profile.

Navigate to Central Administration and click on Manage Service Applications under the Application Management section:

 

On the Service Applications page, scroll down and click on the User Profile Service Application link:

 

 

The Manage Profile Service: User Profile Service Application page appears. On this page click on Manage User Permissions within the People section:

The Permissions for User Profile Service Application dialog appears.

 

 

Within the Permissions dialog, you may add users and change their permissions accordingly. Do disable editing of profiles, select the All Authenticated Users entries and then uncheck the Follow People and Edit Profile option:



You may disable the creation of personal sites (My Sites) as well as tags and notes usage here also. Click OK once the modifications are completed.

 

Guess what?? This doesn't work!

 

If Create Personal Site is checked, users may edit their profile regardless if the Follow People and Edit Profile is checked. So the only way you can turn this off is if you uncheck Create Personal Site as well as Follow People and Edit Profile.