One of my customers has a SharePoint 2013 farm with content migrated from SharePoint 2010.

In the past on SharePoint 2010 they have had the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services-Add-In for SharePoint enabled on some sites. Because they did not need it any more they removed it from SharePoint but without deactivating the Report Server feature on each site collection.

Now on SharePoint 2013 this lead to problems with 3 orphaned content types:

• Report Builder Model
• Report Builder Report
• Report Data Source

First I tried to remove the corresponding feature “ReportServer” with ID e8389ec7-70fd-4179-a1c4-6fcb4342d7a0 from the site:

Get-SPFeature : Cannot find an Enabled Feature object with Id: e8389ec7-70fd-4179-a1c4-6fcb4342d7a0 in scope Site Url: https://sp2013.kc-dev.com/sites/reportingservices.

Than I tried to remove the content types manually using the web GUI and PowerShell. I got this errors:

and

Same message: “The content type “Report Builder Model” is part of an application feature.”

After reading some articles I found two propesed ways:

• Waldek Mastykarz: http://blog.mastykarz.nl/content-type-part-application-feature-error/
  The solution there is to prevent this problem. – RIGHT!!!! – But for me it is too late.
• The second (that I will not link here) said: The only way is to modify the content database directory. – NEVER EVER.

At last I found another way to get rid of the orphaned site collections.

In the following demo I use the content types of the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services SharePoint Addon. I installed it on a SharePoint 2010 platform and created a site collection “https://sp2010.kc-dev.com/sites/reportingservices” in a seperate content database.

Than I migrated this content database to SharePoint 2013 including site collection upgrade. – New URL: https://sp2013.kc-dev.com/sites/reportingservices

Than I checked the usage of the content types using the static method GetUsage of Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContentTypeUsage.

In my case all 3 content types are used in a single list. It is necessary to remove each usage of each content type!! – In my case I deleted the list. After deletation it need to be removed from the recycle bin too!

… and also from the site collection recycle bin!

Now my site collection is clean. No results when checking the usage again:

After that I created a new folder in the FEATURES sub folder in the SharePoint hive:

Than I created the following script to create a dummy feature inside this folder. The dummy feature uses EXACLTY the same feature Id as the missing feature containing the orphaned content types.

Note #1: The feature ID is the same as for the original Reporting Services feature!

Note #2: For this content types it is necessary to remove the XmlDocuments tag and ist content. Otherwise the next step will fail.

With that script I took the cotnent type XML out of SharePoint into a elements.xml file.

Than I was able to install the feature using PowerShell:

At this point the missing feature is back in SharePoint. The system now will not moan if I deactivate the feature.

BEFORE deactivating I made a screenshot of the site content types page:

After this command…

… the site content types page looks like this:

The orphaned content types are gone!

Note: Maybe you get an error during deactivation saying the feature is not active at the scope. In this case you need to activate the feature first and deactivate it afterwards!

The last step is to remove the dummy feature:

That’s it.

Here you download the script if you like: http://bit.ly/OCToWx

Today I want to show you a small PowerShell snippet that I created for a webinar for AvePoint. It’s a webinar in German language about the DocAve module “Content Manager”.

The snippet will show you how to store a encrypted password in a plain text file.

Therefore I use some Windows OS APIs that are accessible in .NET:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.cryptography.protecteddata.protect(v=vs.110).aspx

This encapsulates the “Data Protection API” of Windows: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms995355.aspx

With the methods of this class you are able to encrypt and decrypt data very easily, either in the context of the current user or in the context of the local machine.

The encrypted data can only be decrypted on the same machine in the same context as where they were encrypted.

Very easy and handy. It is  NOT EASY BUT POSSIBLE to decrypt it on another machine. Just read the article mentioned above, especially the section “DPAPI Security” (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms995355.aspx#windataprotection-dpapi_topic04).

It is DocAve specific but of course you can modify it for your own purpose.

Here is the Script:

<##
  Created by Ingo Karstein 
    https://blog.kenaro.com
##>

#Load Modules and Assemblies
Import-Module-Name "C:\program files\AvePoint\DocAve6\Shell\DocAveModules\DocAveModule" -DisableNameChecking
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Security") | Out-Null

#Current folder of script
$path = Split-Path $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path

#Config values
$docavemanageruser = "admin"
$docavemanagerserver = "kcdevsqlexch1"
$docavemanagerport = 14000

#Read password from file or get it from user and store it into a file
if( [string]::IsNullOrEmpty($docavepwd) ) {
  if( Test-Path "$($path)\pwd.txt" ) {
     $data= [System.Convert]::FromBase64String((Get-Content "$($path)\pwd.txt" -Encoding UTF8))
     $global:docavepwd = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Unprotect($data, (123,54,67,89,12,32,146), "CurrentUser"))
  } else {
     $global:docavepwd = Read-Host "Enter AvePoint ""$($docavemanageruser)"" password"
     $data= [System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Protect( ([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($docavepwd)) ,(123,54,67,89,12,32,146), "CurrentUser")

     [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($data) | Set-Content "$($path)\pwd.txt" -Encoding UTF8 -Force
  }
}

#exit if no password
if( [string]::IsNullOrEmpty($docavepwd) ) {
  exit
}

$success=$false
#check if already logged in into DocAve
try {
  $success= (Get-DALocalUser -ErrorAction 0) -ne $null 
  if( !$? ) {
    $success=$false
  }
} catch {
  $success=$false
}

#If not already logged in: Login using credentials
if( !$success ) {
  $cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential( $docavemanageruser, (ConvertTo-SecureString -Force -AsPlainText $docavepwd))
  Login-DAManager -ControlHost $docavemanagerserver -ControlPort $docavemanagerport -Credential $cred
  if( $? -eq $false ) {
    exit
  }
}

In my last post I wrote about a supported approach to create a user profile sync connection in SharePoint 2010 using PowerShell and Internet Explorer automation.

In the meanwhile I have adopted the script for SharePoint 2013.

Same conditions as last time: This is a kind of “Proof of Concept”. You have to modify it in order to use it in you scenarios.

Here it is:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Create-User-Profile-Sync-e9ec0cf7

Original article with some more details:

https://blog.kenaro.com/2013/09/11/create-user-profile-sync-connection-for-sharepoint-2010-by-script-a-supported-approach/

Before we start…

1. It’s not supported to create a User Profile Sync connection by script or code using the server object model. We will NOT do this here!

2. The script in this article is part of my “dev lab” setup scripts. – The script cannot be used “as-is” in real world scenarios. If you want to use this approach in your deployment you MUST customize the script to fit your needs! – Especially for selecting sync entries from the Active Directory treeview selector.

3. The script is a Proof of Concept.

4. It’s tested only on SharePoint Server 2010. I’ll do it for SP 2013 later.

5. The script has almost no error handling !!! Sometimes I get the error message “MOSS MA not found”. In this case I restart the “FIMService” and try again.

The approach…

… is to use Internet Explorer as COM object to navigate to pages of the Central Administration and “act like a user”. This means:

1. Open IE window

2. Navigate to Central Administration -> Manage Service Applications

3. Search of the (first) “User Profile Service Application” in the Service Apps list and navigate to it’s settings page.

4. Open page “Configure Synchronization Connections”.

5. “Click” on link “Create New Connection”

6. Fill in connection parameters such as name, forrest, user profile sync account. Click button “Populate Containers”. Click “Select All”. Click “OK”. Wait until connection is created.

7. On the User Profile Service Application property page: Click on “Start Profile Synchronization”. There select “Start Full Synchronization”. Wait until sync starts. Wait until sync is complete.

The script…

Here it is:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Create-User-Profile-Sync-98ab7201

(Update) Here is the script for for SharePoint 2013: http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Create-User-Profile-Sync-e9ec0cf7 (Article here).

First the script contains some config settings for the new connection.

Appendix

Here are the input boxes related to the config values (line numbers):

The script is written in for a English localized CA. However I have created resource variables for other languages.

Usage of resource variables (line numbers)

Mein erster Blog Post auf deutsch…

Wie Ihr sicher bereits gehört habt wurde der Microsoft Certified (Solutions) Master und Microsoft Certified Architect von Microsoft am Freitag überraschend abgekündigt. – Nicht nur SharePoint: alle 4 Zertifizierungsprogramme wurden abrupt beendet.

Das ist die schlechteste Nachricht, die ich in meiner beruflichen Laufbahn je bekommen habe.

Voller Text hier:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/neiljohn/archive/2013/08/31/retiring-the-microsoft-master-certifications-and-training.aspx

Erste Artikel hier:

[von MCM Wictor Wilén] http://www.wictorwilen.se/microsoft-advanced-certification-mca-mcsm-mcm—the-end-of-an-era

[von MCM Paul Stork] http://www.dontpapanic.com/blog/?p=328

[von MVP Jeremy Thake] http://www.jeremythake.com/2013/08/mcm-certs-gone-microsofts-cloud-reality-distortion-field-in-full-force

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/31/microsoft_cans_three_pinnacle_certifications_sparking_user_fury/

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-abruptly-pulls-masters-certification-hints-a-replacement-may-come-7000020093/

Hier könnt Ihr Microsoft Eure Meinung sagen:

https://connect.microsoft.com/sqlserver/feedback/details/799431/please-dont-get-rid-of-the-mcm-and-mca-programs

Ich war noch im Juni diesen Jahres in Redmond zur Rezertifizierung für MCSM: SharePoint.  Das werde ich bis zum 1. Oktober nicht mehr abschließen können. – Und: Warum sollte ich es noch abschließen, auch wenn das möglich wäre? Sinn macht es so oder so nicht mehr. – Aber ernsthaft: 30 Tage Zeit für eine solche Aktion?! Meine (wenigen) grauen Haare verdanke ich den letzten 17 Monaten, in denen ich erst den MCM abgelegt und mich dann für den MCSM vorbereitet habe. – Besonders verstörend empfinde ich dabei, dass meine Kollegen und ich aus “R15” (“Rotation 15” = Zertifierungsdurchgang ab Juni 2013), letzte Woche (26.08. bis 29.08.)  noch in die Prüfung geschickt wurden obwohl den Verantwortlichen (offensichtlich) längst klar gewesen sein muss, dass die Zertifizierung Geschichte ist.

Eine Analyse, welche Hintergründe die Entscheidung haben mag, möchte ich an dieser Stelle nicht führen, denn das Ergebnis ist offensichtlich. Ich frage mich dieser Tage, wie weit Microsoft die “Cloud”-Strategie noch treiben wird. Ist es tatsächlich deren Ziel, beste Software-Produkte in den Wind zu schlagen und die Kunden quasi zu zwingen, sich Alternativen zu suchen? “Cloud” an sich ist nichts schlechtes, aber “nur Cloud” ist einfach Quatsch.

This is just a short note on this topic. I could not find a script in the net. I’m not sure this is part of some SharePoint “config frameworks” like “AutoSPInstaller”. I do not use this frameworks. I create my own script sets. – Currently I create config scripts for my dev environment… The missing pieces here are related to User Profile Sync. Creating a sync connection *not* using Central Administration is not supported. There is no PowerShell, etc. – Another thing is to grant the sync account rights in the Active Directory… Here is my small script in Technet Gallery:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Set-SharePoint-profile-1a3d1283

The script will not modify an existing entry for the profile sync user in the AD. If the user is in the ACL of the Domain object or the Configuration object it will skip this part!

As always: Use it at your own risk!!! 

Use it like this:

Tested with SharePoint 2013 and a Active Directory based on Windows Server 2012.

I spend some spare time in the last weeks and the last days (in Redmond before the MCSM: SharePoint rotation starts in a few hours 😉 ) for a new private development project. It focuses on custom list forms for SharePoint 2013. – Another article of my blog is one of the most recognized one regarding to the statistics: https://blog.kenaro.com/2010/12/29/walkthrough-create-custom-sharepoint-2010-list-form-for-deployment-in-a-visual-studio-2010-project/ – So I decided to write another article in this context in connection with another plan of mine to create a small framework to enable custom list forms that are stored directly in a SharePoint document library and which are connected with the content types automatically.

I release the source code there:

http://splistforms.codeplex.com

There is no “binary distribution”, because it’s “alpha“. – You will use it at your own risk – as always. Remember: It’s a private development project and I publish it for demonstration purpose only!!

These are the goals:

1. Create a SharePoint list where list forms for content types are registered. – When creating a new form in this list it gets automatically registered on the content type.
2. The list form has 3 different form modes: New, Edit, Display. All can be set individually.
3. The list forms are rendered by using controls stored in a SharePoint document library. – The default SharePoint “Rendering Template” mechanism is used.
4. The custom list form control can be edited with SharePoint Designer or by using another Editor by opening the control file in a mapped network drive.

All this based on SharePoint rendering templates. There are lot of articles out there that cover that topic.

Some information here:

Each content type in SharePoint has some properties related to “form templates” that can be set using C# or the declarative way.

Let’s have a look into the settings of the content type “Item” of a simple custom list.

Here you see all form templates are set to “ListForm”. That is the default setting. – Other lists such as task lists use different default settings like this:

 

“ListForm” and “TaskForm” are so called “rendering templates” that is taken from a certain file in the 15 hive: <15>\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES\DefaultTemplates.ascx

Looking into the file:

Here you find the rendering template “ListForm”. It defines how to create the forms HTML codes at rendering time. – Look at the “ListFieldIterator” tag. It will generate HTML code for all the fields in a SharePoint list. It’s very generic!! (The whole rendering mechanism is one of my favorite peace of code of SharePoint J )

Also for rendering the fields (“columns”) there are rendering templates that will be used by the “ListFieldIterator” at some point of rendering. For example:

You can create your own rendering templates for use with content types. Just add a .ASCX file to the CONTROLTEMPLATES folder of the 15 hive that contains a rendering template in this fashion. (You cannot use a sub folder below CONTROLTEMPLATES!!) Then set the property of the content type to the rendering templates name and it will be used to render your list form. – This is what my framework does.

In the first article I want to show you the result of this project.

In the second article [coming soon] I want to show you how it works behind the scene of the framework.

In the third article [coming soon] I want to show you how to create a SharePoint project to deploy custom list forms that uses the framework.

Let’s start…

1. To start the demonstration I need to create a simple custom list with some columns. I name the list “Simple Demo List” and create 4 columns:

• “Date” => date and time column
• “MultiText” => multiple lines of text column
• “User” => person or group column
• “YesNo” => Yes/No column

2. This is how the default new form of the list looks like:

3. Now I want to create my own list form for this list using my brand new framework. – Therefore I want to show you the two lists and one library it consists of:

• “List Forms” : This list contains all custom form registrations made by the framework. Here you can create new forms. An event handler will create the controls derived from the chosen templates register them on the content types.

   

  

• “List Form Controls” : This library contains the list form controls, the templates and additional jQuery libraries.

   

  

• “List Form Templates” : In this list you can register new templates that will be used to create new forms.

   

  

   

  This is a simple list that refers to the “Templates” folder of the “List Form Controls” library:

   

  

4. Now I want to create a “New Item” form my “Simple Demo List”. Therefore I add a new item to the “List Forms” list:

Here you enter all information needed to identify the content type for which you want to create form. You can choose a form template. I have included to kinds of templates:

1. Plain templates that use the same rendering template as the SharePoint default “ListForm” template.
2. jQuery enabled form templates that allow you to use jQuery for customizations.

I choose “New jQuery” as template.

Before we hit “Save” let’s have a look at the content type using PowerShell. (It’s the same screenshot as above in the “rendering template” excursion at the beginning of this article…)

All forms are set to their defaults: “ListForm”

Now I hit “Save” on the new “List Forms” list item to create my own form.

After that the list view of “List Forms” looks like this:

What happens here:

1. The chosen template file is taken from the “Templates” folder of the “List Form Controls” library. A new name is created using the naming template “SimpleDemoList-New-<GUID>”. The new control is saved using this name in the root folder of the “List Form Controls” library.
2. Inside the new control file there is a template for the list columns. This template will be taken and reproduced for each (visible) field (list column). Then the template in the new control file is replaced by the list column entries. – Here is the template file:

   

   The whole template between the marks “LISTFORM_FIELDPLACEHOLDER_BEGIN” and “LISTFORM_FIELDPLACEHOLDER_END” will be instantiated for each list column. Inside all marked placeholders (“LISTFORM_FIELDINTERNALNAME”) will be replaced by the list columns internal name.

3. Than a new rendering template is registered on the list content type “Item” on the “Simple Demo List”. – Let’s look into it using PowerShell again:

   

   Now the “NewFormTemplateName” is “ListFormNew379E”. This is the indicator that my framework will be responsible for rendering the list form.

4. Let’s have a look into the “List form Controls” library. Here you will find the new control:

   

5. I open the control using a mapped network drive:

   

   In it you see HTML code sections for each list column. These entries are generated automatically using the template file and the “item template” inside the template file.

   

5. Now let’s use the new form. Just open the list view of “Simple Demo List” and hit “New Item”.

This is our jQuery enabled form!! It works in an instant!!

The text “jQuery loaded” is generated at runtime when jQuery could be loaded. (This can be removed of course.) – This framework supports loading jQuery from library “List Form Controls” if it’s not present though the page, e.g. the master page. It also supports loading additional libraries.

To support jQuery and to allow you to use if for your own purpose there are two controls in the control file:

The first one (“LoadJQ”) is responsible for loading jQuery and additional libarires. (One library per line in “AdditionalLibraries”. Supported placeholders are: “~site” for the server relative site collection URL and “~web” for the server relative web URL.)

The second one (“JQSupporter”) can be used to store own code. As an example I’ve replaced the default “PreSaveItem” handler of SharePoint with my own handler in order to support my own validation mechanism before saving the item to be able to cancel the save action.

6. Now I want to add some new functionality to my control. Let’s say we want to ensure that title has at least 10 characters.

Therefore I modify the JQSupporter control in the control file using Expression Web 4 on the mapped network drive.

The “$$” I’ve used there will be replaced at rendering time with the ASP.NET ClientID of the List Form. This should be used to prevent naming issues. (To use “$$” as characters inside the script just use “\$$” as escape sequence.)

The variable “listform$$_ctrl_Title” is generated automatically by the JQSupporter control. For each visible list form control you will get such a variable “listform$$_ctrl_<FieldInternalName>“.

This is how the source looks like at client side:

Let’s test it:

It works. J

7. Now you are able to customize forms very quickly. “Normal” users only need read permissions on the lists/library “List Forms”, “List Form Controls”, “List Form Templates”.

All settings should be part of a normal SharePoint backup, e.g. Backup-SPSite. I’m not sure it would be part of an SharePoint Export. … I checked the exports Manifest.xml file and I can see the content types form setting is exported. Because of all controls and settings are in SharePoint lists and libraries it should be possible to include this in a SharePoint Export/Import or deployment process. – It should be possible too to save the settings in a site template. (However… you always need to add the SharePoint solution as full trust solution to your farm.)

Limitations:

• It’s alpha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• It is hardly tested!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• It does not support removing the custom form from the content type. – That can be done through PowerShell by setting the form property back to the default value (“ListForm” or “TaskForm” or what ever…).
• It should work with site content types but I’ve not tested it yet. I have commented out it.
• It does not handle errors if they occure.
• It’s not performance tested!
• It has no management interface. Only the lists and libraries I’ve described above. They should be hidden. You could hide them easily.

Next steps:

• Management interface
• “Remove List Form” support for event handler on list “List Forms”
• Field Rendering Templates.

Please feel free to make comments if you like it – or not like it.