Ben There, Done That: Posts http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/All Posts.aspx RSS feed for the Posts list. Sun, 20 May 2012 10:18:25 GMT Microsoft SharePoint Foundation RSS Generator 60 en-US Ben There, Done That: Posts http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/_layouts/images/siteIcon.png http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/All Posts.aspx Using JavaScript on your Office 365 Public Site http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=621 Body:

A couple months back I was working on an Office 365 public facing site and needed to add some JavaScript to the site.  In this case I was just trying to add Kontactr to a page.  I know, once of the gadgets with Office 365 is  Contact Us, however it is missing the CAPTCHA, something I really enjoy having to reduce the amount of spam.

My first approach was the typical SharePoint approach, just stick a content editor web part on the page and paste the HTML in.  With Office 365 it was place the HTML gadget on the page and paste in the JavaScript.  Unfortunately it didn’t work.

So, how do you do it?  I found this post explaining it - http://webbrewers.com/cata.aspx#3.  When adding references you need to wrap them in a form tag like:

<form action="">
  <input type="image" style="display:none !important;">
  <script type="text/javascript" defer="defer">id = 117156;</script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://kontactr.com/wp.js"></script>
</form>
Hope it helps!
Category: Office365; Customization/Development; Web Parts
Published: 5/14/2012 8:22 PM
Title: Using JavaScript on your Office 365 Public Site
]]> EMS\sharepointben Office365; Customization/Development; Web Parts Tue, 15 May 2012 11:46:31 GMT http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=621 Custom SharePoint .ASPX form–“Could Not Load Type” http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=419 Body:

This is starting to get dangerous…I’m blogging about SharePoint development twice in a row.  Again, this may be something very basic to most SharePoint developers, but as I learn, I enjoy blogging about issues I’ve discovered and things I’ve learned as I continue to develop more.

My next venture into SharePoint development is to create some custom .ASPX forms for use within our SharePoint environment.  For our situation, InfoPath Forms Services would make much more sense, unfortunately, we only have SharePoint 2007 Standard with no plans to go to Enterprise.

So, I created a very basic .ASPX file with an equally as simple .cs (code behind file), packaged it all up as solution and deployed it.  However, when I went to access the site, I encounter a “Could Not Load Type…” error.  After a quick search on Google, I found - http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew/archive/2007/12/07/could-not-load-type-error.aspx between that post and the post by Andrew Connell that was referenced there I was able to solve my problem.

[Update 4/20/2012] - Recently a couple people have commend that the link above no longer works.  For a good walkthrough on creating an application page in SharePoint 2007 please see this page - http://code-journey.com/2009/make-a-sharepoint-application-page-with-codebehind/

When I had created my .aspx file I had failed to use the “5 part name” to reference the assembly file.  I had put Inherits=”NewForm.NewForm” rather than Inherits=”NewForm.NewForm, NewForm, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=*********”

As soon as I changed my .aspx file to use the 5 part name and redeployed my solution everything worked perfectly!

Category: SharePoint 2007
Published: 7/8/2010 12:08 PM
Title: Custom SharePoint .ASPX form–“Could Not Load Type”
]]> Benjamin.Stegink SharePoint 2007 Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:59:03 GMT http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=419 Auto Populating (and Creating) Word Documents from a SharePoint List http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=620 Body:

I can’t take all the credit for this post, it is a combination of knowledge gleaned from 3 different posts (see references at the end of the post) and some playing around on my part.

To start with, a little background.  The environment I created this in is SharePoint 2010 Enterprise (no InfoPath forms services).  We needed to be able to allow users to add/update items in a SharePoint list and from that list item generate a document that could be be submitted (emailed or faxed) to the proper parties.  So, how did we do it?  A standard SharePoint List, a custom SharePoint Designer Workflow and a custom Word Document template on a document library.

The first thing to do is to create your Word Document.  That simple, just open up Word 2010, create a document and save it as a .docx file (I tried .dotx initially but had some issues).  Then upload this to the Forms folder in your SharePoint document library.  Once this has ben uploaded, go the advanced settings within your document library settings.  Type (or paste) in the relative URL to your uploaded Word document (i.e. DocLib/Forms/mydoc.docx).  After this has been filled in, click “Edit Template” directly under the text box.  This should open your Document.  Switch to the Insert tab in the ribbon, click “Quick Parts”, hover over Document Property, and you should see all the metadata properties (list columns) from your SharePoint Document Library.  At this point in time, feel free to go back to your SharePoint document library and add any additional columns you may need.  Note: I initially tried the above process using Content Types and didn’t get the same results.  My custom columns weren’t showing up in the Quick Parts.  Not to say it isn’t possible and I won’t try to figure it out, I just didn’t spend the time on it for my quick prototype.

So, now every time you create a new document in the library, it will pull that documents metadata and insert it into the appropriate controls within the document.  But, what if a field isn’t required and sometimes come back blank?  If you try to print the document, you get [Field Name] for all blank fields.  Not exactly what I hoped for.  Good thing is, it’s easy to fix.  For more details, pics around this process, see the third reference below.  Quickly, the process is:

  1. Add the Developer Toolbar to the Ribbon
  2. Select the Developer Tab
  3. Click on “Design Mode”
  4. Where you have the [FieldName] Text in your controls, replace it with a space (you can’t leave it completely empty)
  5. Now when you open your document, any blank field will just be a single space

 

Finally, the good stuff, you have a document, you can auto populate fields in the document from the metadata, but how do you get that metadata there and auto generate the document from a list item?

Workflow!

For this, just start by reading the “List fields + Workflow = controlled Word document” reference below and skip down to Step 3.  (1 and 2 are just restating what I have above).  But don’t do too much yet.  One that that is mentioned in Step 3 is that your custom list and create the same columns as you did for your Document Library.  You actually don’t have to do this.  For instance…I have several choice fields in my custom list.  For arguments sake, lets say with 4 items.  In my document library, I have one column for each possible choice (4 single text fields) because I want to “fill in” certain text in my document based on the choice made.  This also included the use of several Workflow variables.

Ok, now go ahead and start your custom list and workflow.

This should give you a good starting point, feel free to get creative with the workflow.  I actually added an approval into my workflow so that unless the add/update of the item in my custom list is approved, the document won’t be generated.

I also made extensive use of Workflow Variables, in some cased, combining fields from my custom list into a single variable to then place that variable within a field on my Word document.  You can also put conditions within the workflow, one of mine was, if the Workflow was started by updating a list item, put “update” as part of the name of my word document.  If the workflow was started by creating a new list item, put “new” as part of the name of the document.  Be creative!! As always, if you have any questions, comments in sites or creative things you’ve done with Word documents, workflows, and metadata, feel free to leave a comment below.

 

References

XML mapping with Word & SharePoint - http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2007/01/18/xml-mapping-with-word-sharepoint.aspx

List fields + Workflow = controlled Word document - http://sharepoint-afterwork.com/2010/10/14/list-fields-workflow-controled-word-document/

Configure Word 2007 Content Control with empty Placeholder Text - http://www.moss2007.be/blogs/vandest/archive/2009/12/03/configure-word-2007-content-controls-with-empty-placeholder-text.aspx (This also work for Word 2010)

Published: 3/28/2012 1:46 PM
Title: Auto Populating (and Creating) Word Documents from a SharePoint List
]]> EMS\sharepointben Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:46:04 GMT http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=620 Audio Conferencing Solutions with Office 365 http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=619 Body:

So, I signed up for an Office 365 account a few months back.  Lync offers a great solution for hosting online meetings.  However, one downside is there isn’t any options included with Office 365 for integrating a telephone audio conference with your online meeting/built in Lync audio.  They do offer an option though, the capabilities are there to integrated with a third-part phone conferencing vendor.  There are three vendors that provide the integrated service, PGi, InterCall and BT Conferencing.  I’ve spend the last two weeks signing up for, using, talking to (or trying to talk to) all three providers trying to find the one that best fits my needs.  For those of you that don’t want to read this lengthy post any further, I found InterCall’s pay-per-use plan to be the one for me as I don’t have consitant monthly usage and I’m the only one that’s using it (as opposed to a company with multiple users).  For those of you interested, my experiences with each of them (and why I chose InterCall) are outlined in the rest of this post.

First of all, some background on me.  As I said above, I was looking for a solution for just me.  I don’t have a team of individuals I needed to provide a solution for.  I also as mentioned above, I don’t necessarily use it every month.  It’s a sporadic thing where I only need the phone audio conference with Lync when I can’t use something like Skype or Integrated Lync audio due to participants being on the road, not having Lync or Skype (or being able to install it), etc..

PGi:

PGi probably would have been my first choice based purely on their customer service, knowledge of the solution and responsiveness.  The account manager I was assigned at PGi was very helpful and quick to answer all of my questions.  However, their plans just aren’t right for me at the time.  They offer several plans for audio conferencing.  However, one thing to be careful about is, not all of them actually integrate with Lync.  Their plan that would have fit me best was a $0.06/minute/user plan.  I simply pay for the time I use.  If I don’t use it one month, I pay nothing.  However, I found out this plan doesn’t integrate with Lync.  The plans they offer that integrate with Lync are: 300 minutes/month – $19/month; 500 minutes/month – $25/month; 1000 minutes/month – $39/month.  Not bad, but if I don’t know I’m going to use 300/month, I could end up spending a lot of money for nothing.  Roll over minutes or a per-per-use plan that integrates with Lync (Like InterCall) would be nice (hint, hint PGi)

BT Conferencing:

These guys were a big let down.  I have yet to actually hear from them via email, phone, anything.  I signed up for there $/minute/user plan (still have no idea what the actual cost is).  I’ve submitted a few requests to them online with no response.  I looked through their plans after I signed up, but nothing was very straight forward.  Overall, rather confusing and last or responsiveness was a big disappointment as well as not every publishing what the cost for their service is.  They rank last on my list.

InterCall:

They weren’t as knowledgeable on the Office 365 Lync integrated plans  as I had hoped.  I was able to talk to support on the phone, however they weren’t able to answer my questions or find anyone that could at the time (to be fair it was 6:20PM EDT).  The did give me the name/number for the sales rep in my area.  I left him a voicemail and haven’t heard back from him yet (It’s been 2 1/2 business days).  So he may have been able to answer my questions, I just haven’t talked to him yet.  However, they had the type of plan I was looking for that integrated with Lync.  Their pricing model is slightly different than PGi, but also offer three plans: Unlimited minutes, 10 participant max – $39/month; Unlimited minutes, 20 participant max – $49/month; Pay-As-You-Go, 125 participant max – $0.10/minute/user.  My opinion is this should hit a larger cross section of users than the current PGi plans do.

My Conclusions

As I said above ultimately I went with the pay-as-you-go plan from InterCall.  Sure an hour long phone call with 7 participants once a month will cost me more than the $39/month plan.  But if I only have one of these calls every other month I’m still saving money.  If I consistently use my audio conference every month (or several times every other month, etc) I’ll have to look at the minutes I use and re-evaluate between PGi and InterCall based on my actual usage.  My initial experience with InterCall so far is that their support staff is a bit under-trained on their Office 365/Lync integration options.  However, maybe the sales staff is better and the one in my area is super busy Smile.  The sign-up process was SIMPLE!  After not talking to Sales, I took the plunge and just signed up online.  The registration process took about 2 minutes and a credit card.  About 10-15 minutes after signing up a received an email with the phone numbers and pin.  I entered them into my Office 365 Lync settings and fired up a meeting.  I was able to launch the meeting from Lync and use my integrated computer audio.  I used my cell phone to dial into the conference (without entering the leader pin).  The call recognized both my cell phone and my computer as participants and I was able to have an audio conversation (yes, with myself) without any issue.  So, even though support wasn’t quite up to speed, the registration and configuration process was quick and simple and I didn’t need any assistance to get it up and going.  I did read about some people having issues if DNS wasn’t properly configured so I did double check and make sure all my DNS records were properly created.  The DNS settings aren’t anything special or different, just the standard DNS records (see the external domain name settings) Microsoft tells you to create when setting up Office 365.  Hopefully the support knowledge and sales responsiveness at InterCall improves as Office 365 becomes more popular.

If anyone has any questions, comments, feedback, issues, etc. I’m more than happy to talk to them.  Just leave a comment, contact me, or message me on twitter @SharePointBen

[Update before publishing] – I wrote this blog post on Tuesday evening and posted to twitter about my choice of InterCall.  This morning – Wednesday – InterCall did send me a message on twitter for a link to this post.  So InterCall is active on twitter, another plus for them.

Category: SharePoint 2010; Installation/Configuration; Administration; Office365
Published: 3/21/2012 1:29 PM
Title: Audio Conferencing Solutions with Office 365
]]> EMS\sharepointben SharePoint 2010; Installation/Configuration; Administration; Office365 Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:29:08 GMT http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=619