SharePoint24x7

Enabling Developer Dashboard in SharePoint 2010

Joy — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:59:00 +0000

ASP.NET provides Call Stack and Tracing as wonderful features which helps developers on investigating what is going on page rendering behind the scene. SharePoint being a product which provides bunch of features OOTB which we can use to setup a portal very easily, it hides most of these information.

Back in MOSS 2007, we had to scratch our head thinking where to start our investigation when we get an error in the browser, because that error was not descriptive enough for us to start the investigation.

In SharePoint 2010, we have a nice feature – Developer Dashboard which helps developers to be comfortable when they see an error in the browser.

Enabling Developer Dashboard

Developer Dashboard is a feature targeted for developers (administrators as well) and hence it is disabled by default. We need to enable it using one of the method mentioned below:

STSADM
PowerShell
SharePoint Object Model

STSADM

We still can use STSADM with SharePoint 2010 for administering SharePoint. However, STSADM is more likely to disappear in the next release. Though we can use following STSADM command to enable Developer Dashboard, I strongly recommend to get familiar with PowerShell, if you are not already.

Go to the command prompt and make sure to either set the path to the location of STSADM.EXE or navigate to the bin directory in SharePoint root in your command prompt.
Issue the following command in the command prompt:STSADM -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv ondemand

The above command will enable the Developer Dashboard in On Demand mode.

PowerShell

Go to Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products –> SharePoint 2010 Management Shell
Issue the following command in the management shell:$devdash = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings;
$devdash.DisplayLevel = ‘OnDemand’;
$devdash.TraceEnabled = $true;
$devdash.Update()

The above command will enable the Developer Dashboard in On Demand mode.

SharePoint Object Model

Create a Console Application, Windows Application or Web Site and add a reference to the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll assembly.
Add using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration namespace reference at the top of the code (C#) file.
Add the following code into your code (C#) file to enable Developer Dashboard:SPWebService svc = SPContext.Current.Site.WebApplication.WebService;
svc.DeveloperDashboardSettings.DisplayLevel = SPDeveloperDashboardLevel.OnDemand;
svc.DeveloperDashboardSettings.Update();

The above command will enable the Developer Dashboard in On Demand mode.

I have used On Demand as the setting for Display Level of the Developer Dashboard and following are the other options we can specify:

On – Enable the Developer Dashboard all the times
Off – Disable the Developer Dashboard
OnDemand – Enable the Developer Dashboard but will be displayed on demand.

When you enable Developer Dashboard in On Demand mode, following icon will be displayed next to your login name.

On click of the Developer Dashboard icon, page will be reloaded and Developer Dashboard will be displayed at the bottom of the page as shown below:

If you have also used TraceEnabled = $true switch with PowerShell, then you will see a link says “Show or hide additional tracing information …” at the end of the Developer Dashboard which allows you to show/ hide ASP.NET Tracing information as shown below:

Isn’t this a awesome feature for you to get started your investigation exercise? Have a closer look at what Developer Dashboard offers you and it will help you in numbers of ways.

Fix it – Configuring Object Cache service

Joy — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:02:43 +0000

If you are using Web Content Management (WCM) solutions implemented with SharePoint 2010 Publishing Infrastructure features, you will notice following Critical error in your server Event Log.

What does it mean and how do you fix this?

This error is generated by SharePoint’s Object Cache service. In order to get rid of this error, you will have to configure Object Cache service.

What is Object Cache service?

Object Cache is a very powerful built-in service in SharePoint 2010 Publishing Infrastructure which instructs every Web Front End (WFE) to cache object properties in order to boost the performance. This reduces the load on SQL Server tremendously by reducing number of round trips required to retrieve same data from the content databases. In scenarios where you have Web Content Management solutions which go through less content changes, by configuring Object Cache, you can reduce the latency and increase the throughput.

Configuring Object Cache is all about configuring User Policies for each and every Web Applications. Object Cache is configured at the Web Application level and you need to have 02 AD user accounts for configuring Portal Super User and Portal Super Reader. Portal Super User account has full control and Portal Super Reader account has full read-only access.

Let us begin the configuration.

Task 1 – Create required AD accounts

You need to create 02 service accounts in order to configure Portal Super User and Portal Super Reader. Go to Active Directory and create 02 service accounts.

I already have 02 service accounts created named, SP_ObjectCacheUser and SP_ObjectCacheReader.

Task 2 – Configure Object Cache User Accounts using CA

Initial configuration done using CA.

Fire up the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration site by navigating to Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products –> SharePoint 2010 Central Administration.
Select Manage web applications link from the Application Management group.
Select the web application you are planning to configure Object Cache. In my environment, for this demo, I’m selecting SharePoint – 80 web application.
Click the User Policy from the Policy group in the ribbon.
Click Add Users link in the Policy for Web Application dialog box.
Select (All Zones) for the Select the Zone field in the Add Users dialog box and click Next > button.
Enter the Portal Super User account for the Choose Users field and select Full Control from the Choose Permissions section and click Finish. In my demo, I have configured SP_ObjectCacheUser as the Portal Super User.
Click Add Users link again in the Policy for Web Application dialog box.
Select (All Zones) for the Select the Zone field in the Add Users dialog box and click Next > button.
Enter the Portal Super Reader account for the Choose Users field and select Full Read from the Choose Permissions section and click Finish. In my demo, I have configured SP_ObjectCacheReader as the Portal Super Read.
Policy for Web Application dialog box now will look following.

Task 3 – Committing configuration changes using PowerShell

Final step is to commit configuration changes using PowerShell.

Fire up SharePoint 2010 Management Shell by navigating to Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products –> SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
Enter the following PowerShell commands to update the settings. Change the Web Application name placeholder depending on the name of the Web Application.$wa = Get-SPWebApplication – Identity “SharePoint – 80”
$wa.Properties[“portalsuperuseraccount”] = “CONTOSO\SP_ObjectCacheUser”
$wa.Properties[“portalsuperreaderaccount”] = “CONTOSO\SP_ObjectCacheReader”
$wa.Update()

Now you will not see the earlier Critical error in your server Event Log as well as you will experience a reduced latency and an improved throughput.

Article – Configuring Forms-based Authentication in SharePoint 2010

Joy — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 04:25:00 +0000

Configuring Form-based authentication has been always challenging in SharePoint products and technologies since its early releases. With the introduction of SharePoint 2010, it became simpler but little confusing to most of developers & administrators. I’m going to quickly go through how to configure forms-based authentication in SharePoint 2010 using a SQL Server based user store.

Note: Authentication in SharePoint can be configured only at the Web Application level. Web Application is the boundary for configuring authentication in SharePoint. Even before creating a new web application using CA, you need to decide what type of authentication you are planning to use within the web application. Changing authentication mode later might be difficult and error prone than expected.

Note: To configure form-based authentication, new claims-based authentication mode needs to be configured for the web application. In SharePoint 2010 form-based authentication is implemented using claims-based authentication and using classic mode authenticating to implement form-based authentication is not supported by Microsoft.

Configuring form-based authentication has several phases:

Provisioning and configuring a custom user store
Populating the user store with users and roles
Creating a new Web Application
Configuring STS, CA & FBA Web Application
Test to see whether FBA works

Phase 1: Provisioning and configuring a user store

Task 1: Provisioning and configuring a custom user store

I’m going to use very simple script provided by Microsoft Visual Studio SDK to create a very simple user store to store all the users and roles information.

Fire up Visual Studio Command Prompt (2010) by navigating to Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 -> Visual Studio Tools -> Visual Studio Command Prompt (2010).
Enter aspnet_regsql and wait until it starts ASP.NET SQL Server Setup Wizard.
Click Next in the Welcome to the ASP.NET SQL Server Setup Wizard page.
Select Configure SQL Server for application services option from the Select a Setup Option page.
In the Select the Server and Database page, enter name of the SQL Server for the Server: field. Select the appropriate authentication mode for the database server (In my case Windows authentication). And if you want to specify a database name, replace with the name of your choice for the Database: field. Leaving Database: field with will always create a database named aspnetdb. Click Next after you enter all the details.
Click Next in the Confirm Your Settings page to start the configuration.
After few seconds, you will get the “The database has been created or modified.” page. Click Finish to quit the wizard.
Exit the Visual Studio Command Prompt (2010).

Task 2: Verify the existence of custom user store

Fire up Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio by navigating to Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 -> SQL Server Management Studio.
Connect to the correct SQL Server using Connect to Server dialog box.
Expand Databases folder and verify the existence of the database aspnetdb.

Task 3: Configuring database access to CA and AppPool user accounts

In order to CA and Web Applications to being able to communicate with the custom user store (aspnetdb database), we need to grant access to SharePoint Farm account and AppPool account. In my environment, I have 02 accounts names SP_Farm and SP_AppPool which I have configured to run SharePoint Farm and AppPools respectively. You need to find out the name of the service accounts for SharePoint Farm Service Account and Application Pool Service Account you configured while you are setting up SharePoint. Once you identify them, perform following instructions to grant right permissions to the database:

Expand Database folder in SQL Server Management Studio.
Expand aspnetdb database.
Expand Security folder and then Users folder.
Right-click Users folder and select New User…
In the Database User – New dialog box, enter name of the farm user for the User name: field and name of the login for the Login name: field.
From the Database role membership: list select the following database Role Members:

aspnet_Membership_FullAccess
aspnet_Personalization_FullAccess
aspnet_Profile_FullAccess
aspnet_Roles_FullAccess
aspnet_WebEvent_FullAccess

Select OK to add the user to the database.
Repeat steps 4 through 7 for granting SharePoint AppPool service account as well.

Phase 2: Populating the user store with users and roles

Next we need to get some sample users in to the new user store we created by using a role provider. Easiest way to do this is using a Visual Studio ASP.NET Web Site.

Task 1: Creating Users and Roles in custom user store

Fire up Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 by navigating to Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.
Select File -> New -> Web Site…
Select the language of your choice. Select ASP.NET Web Site project template. Provide a project name and click OK.
Double-click web.config from the Solution Explorer and replace with the following:

(local);Initial Catalog=aspnetdb;Integrated Security=True"/>
Make sure to change the highlighted connection string as per your environment to point to the new user store created.
Save web.config file.
Select the ASP.NET Configuration option from the Solution Explorer to open the ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool.
Go to Provider tab and click “Select a single provider for all site management data” link. Click the link “Test” in front of “AspNetSqlProvider” and make sure you receive a successful response message “Successfully established a connection to the database.”.
Navigate to Security tab. Click “Select authentication type” link from Users section. Change the selection to “From the internet” and click Done.
Select “Enable roles” link from the Roles section to enable role management.
Select “Create user” link from Users section to create required number of users in the user store.
Select “Create or Manage roles” link from Roles section to create roles. Enter Admins for the New role name: field and click Add Role. Add another role named Users following same steps.
Select Manage for the Admins role and search for the Admin user and make sure he is a member of the Admins role. Repeat the same steps to include Sam and Joy users as a member of Users role.

Use steps 11 through 13 to setup the required users and groups in your user store depending on the requirement.

Phase 3: Creating a new Web Application

After we setup our custom user store with the required users and groups, we can start wiring it to the web application.

Task 1: Creating a Web Application to support FBA

Fire up the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration site.
Select Manage web applications from Application Management section.
Click New from the Contribute group of the ribbon to create a new web application.
In the Create New Web Application dialog, select Claims Based Authentication as the option for Authentication. Provide a meaningful name for the Name and provide a valid port for the Port in the IIS Web Site section.
Move down to Claims Authentication Types section and select Enable Forms Based Authentication (FBA) and provide following for Membership and Role providers: (these information can be obtained from machine.config file).

ASP.NET Membership provider name: AspNetSqlMembershipProvider
ASP.NET Role manager name: AspNetSqlRoleProvider

Go down to section Sing In Page URL section and if you wish you can configure a custom Sign in page instead of using built-in sign in page. I will use the built-in sign in page for this demo.
Leave rest of the fields as it is and click OK to create the new web application.
After a few seconds/ minutes, you will get the Application Created dialog box confirming web application creation. Click the link “Create Site Collection” to create a new Site Collection in this new web application.
Give a Title and Description in the Title and Description section.
Select Team Site template from the Template Selection section.
Specify the Farm Administrator name for the Primary Site Collection Administrator field for being able to login using Windows Authentication. I provided my farm administrator account CONTOSO\Administrator for the same.
Click OK to create the Site Collection.
Click OK to navigate away from the Top-Level Site Successfully Created dialog box.

Task 2: Verify that the new Site Collection can be access using Windows Authentication

Before we proceed, let’s make sure that we can login and access the new site collection using Windows Authentication since we selected both the options while we were creating the Web Application.

Enter the URL of the new Site Collection. In my case, http://teamserver:8080
You will be taken to the default sign in page.
Select Windows Authentication from the drop down and make sure you get access to the new site collection we just created.

Phase 4: Configuring Security Token Service, CA & FBA Web Application

We need to configure Membership provider for Security Token Service in order to FBA to work properly using Claims based authentication in SharePoint 2010.

Task 1: Configuring STS

Fire up the IIS Manager by navigating to Start -> Administrative Tools -> Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
Expand the IIS Server and expand the Sites folder.
Expand SharePoint Web Services Web Site.
Right-click SecurityTokenServiceApplication web site and select Explore.
Open the web.config file.
Go to the end of the file and locate the element. Just after the element, copy the following configuration elements:
Save the changes to web.config file.

Task 2: Configuring FBA Web Application

Fire up the IIS Manager by navigating to Start -> Administrative Tools -> Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
Expand the IIS Server and expand the Sites folder.
Right-click FBA enabled web application you created earlier in Phase 3 and select Explore. In my example, FBA Web Site – 8080.
Open the web.config file.
Locate the element and within add the following just below existing content:
Just underneath the Membership provider, locate the element and within add the following just below existing content:
Finally, locate the element and just underneath that, add the following:
Save the changes to the web.config file.

Task 3: Configure CA – Optional

Fire up the IIS Manager by navigating to Start -> Administrative Tools -> Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
Expand the IIS Server and expand the Sites folder.
Right-click SharePoint Central Administration v4 site and select Explore.
Open the web.config file.
Search for and elements and you will typically see a set of empty elements for the same. Replace those empty elements with the following:
And just underneath the element, enter the following:
Save the changes to web.config file.

Phase 5: Test to see whether FBA works

Before we test to see whether FBA works, we need to make sure Windows Authentication works as earlier and grant access to one of the Forms based user account to site.

Task 1: Verify that the new Site Collection can be access using Windows Authentication

Enter the URL of the new Site Collection. In my case, http://teamserver:8080
You will be taken to the default sign in page.
Select Windows Authentication from the drop down and make sure you get access to the new site collection we just created.

Task 2: Grand access to Forms based users

While you are logged in as Administrator using Windows Authentication, select Site Actions -> Site Permissions.
Select Grant Permissions from the Grant group in the ribbon.
In the Grant Permissions dialog box, select the Browse button.
In the Select People and Groups – Webpage Dialog, enter forms based user name in the Find field and click Search button. I’m searching for Joy user which I created earlier in Phase 2.
You will see Joy user comes under User: Forms Auth category. Select the user and click Add -> button and click OK.
Select the Contribute group from the Grant Permission dialog box and click OK.

Task 3: Test to see whether we can login using FBA

Open a new browser window and enter the URL of the new Site Collection. In my case, http://teamserver:8080
You will be taken to the default sign in page.
Select Forms Authentication from the drop down and it will take you to a sign in page in which you can enter user name and password.
Enter user name and password for the forms user and click Sign In button.
Wow, you have now logged in as Joy who is a forms based user.

Closing Note: It’s going be bit difficult when you configure Forms-based Authentication for the first time but once you have experience doing it few times, you will not face any issues.

Fix it – SharePoint Server Search doesn’t crawl/ index Project Server 2010 PWA content.

Joy — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:48:29 +0000

I have been working with Element K team on supporting their new Microsoft Project Server 2010 – Project Web Access course development. They have setup a new Project Server 2010 server with PWA and have been facing issues with Search using PWA portal. In simple, they were getting no records found response when they search for an item which is already available in their portal.

I have been asked to support them and volunteered for the same.

First things first. I went and logged into SharePoint Central Administration website and checked "Services on this server" page and found out that SharePoint Server Search is not running. I navigated to "Manage service applications" page and created a new "Search Service Application" and an associated proxy.
Configured Crawling and executed a Full Crawl immediately. It indicated 4 successes and 1 error. When I checked the error, it stated that "http://[servername]/PWA - The SharePoint item being crawled returned an error when attempting to download the item." I didn't understand what was it and did some searching and found out a very nice helpful blog post - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/maulikr/archive/2011/06/15/project-server-2010-how-to-configure-search-for-pwa-sites.aspx.

As per the MSFT blog post, SharePoint Search Service doesn't index PWA content automatically without doing some Registry tweaks. To resolve this we will need to change the registry key value for the "UserAgent" in SharePoint Server. The original value for "UserAgent" key is "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows NT; MS Search 6.0 Robot)" and we need to change it to "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; MS-RTC LM 8; Tablet PC 2.0)".

Open the registry editor by executing regedit in Start -> Run.
Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\14.0\Search\Global\Gathering Manager" folder and locate the "UserAgent" key. Right-click the "UserAgent" key and modify the value to read as "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; MS-RTC LM 8; Tablet PC 2.0)".
Restart the SharePoint Server.
Reset the Search Index.
Run a Full Crawl again.

Now we should be able to see that PWA content spitted into Search Result page in PWA portal.

Fix it – Office Web Apps couldn’t open the document for viewing because of an unexpected error

Joy — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 17:43:30 +0000

I tried Office Web Apps with SharePoint 2010 when the product was in beta and I was thrilled with the features introduced. I also setup a virtual machine with SharePoint 2010 and Office Web Apps on the very next day after they released the RTM bits of SharePoint 2010 and Office Web Apps. I did few articles on the same topic using that virtual machine and recently I updated it with Service Pack 1 bits.

I applied SharePoint Foundation 2010 SP 1, SharePoint Server 2010 SP 1 and Office Web Apps SP 1 and I tried opening a Word document using browser and then boomed. I got the following error when I try to open a Word document within browser. The error says "Word Web App cannot open this document for viewing because of an unexpected error. To view this document, open it in Microsoft Word".

Office Web App error

Usual troubleshooting exercise started by going to ULS logs. ULS logs stated that Word Viewing Service cannot access the database server and also it stated that App Pool account doesn't have write permission to C:\Windows\Temp directory. Next, I checked the Windows Event Viewer and it also stated that the database server is not accessible and the related content database is not accessible by the App Pool account.

I went and checked the SQL Server security and found out that App Pool account already has been given right set of permission and then checked the file permission to C:\Windows\Temp directory. What I found out was that write permission was assigned to a group called WSS_ADMIN_WPG and when I checked closely I saw that my App Pool account was part of the same security group. Then where was the issue?

I started Googling and found out that some of the users encountered this when you have Active Directory also running in the same machine. Then I found out some PowerShell scripts from http://www.dilukj.com/2011/04/setup-office-web-apps-for-sharepoint-2010/ to configure Word Viewing Service and PowerPoint Service Applications to disable Sandboxed execution which is preventing Office Web Apps to function properly in a machine in which we have both Office Web Apps and Active Directory configured.

I ran those commands there was no luck and then I was breaking my head for few minutes to find out why is this happening? Then I remembered that I have another service account which I have configured to run all the Service Applications in my farm and I went and checked SQL Server security again for the content database for the same account. Damn, that account didn't have access to the content database. I added the same service account which I have configured to run all my Service Applications as a new login to the content database and assigned the "db_owner" role.

Wow, Office Web Apps started working nicely as I expected.

I thought of sharing this experience so that when you get the above error, now you now what are the things you need to check to fix the problem.

Introducing Edit Control Block (ECB)

Joy — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:10:30 +0000

Most of us who use SharePoint product have been using following menu a number of times. But how did you refer to this menu? How do you call this menu? I have heard people call this menu as "this drop down menu", "this document specific menu", "this item specific menu", "this document edit menu", "this item edit menu", etc…

What is the actual name for this flying menu when you click the down arrow next to the item/ document Name?

This is called "Edit Control Box (ECB)". Now onward, you guys should get used to using this right name instead of calling it "this menu", "that menu", etc…

Edit Control Block (ECB)

Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010 Products is Now Available for Download

Joy — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:45:47 +0000

Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010 Products is Now Available for Download.

Service Pack 1 includes stability, performance, and security enhancements that are a direct result of customer/ partner feedback. Read more about installing Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 and Language Packs from the SharePoint Team Blog.

SharePoint Team Blog: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/BlogPost.aspx?pID=984

Download Service Pack 1: http://technet.microsoft.com/office/ee748587.aspx

Get Ready for the SEA SharePoint Conference 2011

Joy — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 06:29:58 +0000

SEA SharePoint Conference 2011

I just received the good news about the SEA SharePoint Conference 2011. Plans are underway for SEA SharePoint Conference and I'm very excited to go this year as well.

If you were there last year, I assume you have already decided to come this year and let me help you to book your calendar. Go ahead and book 08^th – 09^th November for the greatest SharePoint Conference in the region. If you didn't get the chance to be there last year, here you have got another great opportunity. In nutshell, SEA SharePoint Conference is the largest gathering focused for SharePoint Products & Technologies which runs over 02 days to provide great technical/ business sessions delivered by reputed speakers.

Come and join us to know more about what you can do with SharePoint.

Keep your eye on http://www.sharepointconference.asia/ for more details.

SharePoint Saturday is coming to Sri Lanka

Joy — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 14:36:44 +0000

SharePoint Saturday Sri Lanka

I was in Singapore last year for presenting at SEA SharePoint Conference and I met Michael Noel & Alpesh Nakar and few other members who are part of SharePoint Saturday. We discussed the possibility of having a SharePoint Saturday in Sri Lanka and Michael liked it to have during Mango seasonJ.

Finaly we are having our first SharePoint Saturday in Sri Lanka and it's happening on 11^th June. I'm delighted to present a session there even with the very tight schedule I'm having right now. More importantly, I'm delighted to present while my employer - Virtusa Pvt. Ltd. also sponsoring for the event.

What is SharePoint Saturday SL?

SharePoint Saturday SL is an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics. SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

When is SharePoint Saturday SL?

June 11, 2011 Saturday

Where is SharePoint Saturday SL?

Informatics Institute of Technology,
57, Ramakrishna Road,
Colombo 06,
Sri Lanka.

You can find more information about the event from the official site: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/srilanka/default.aspx also don't forget to check on the schedule: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/srilanka/Pages/schedule.aspx and the speakers who are presenting: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/srilanka/Pages/speakers.aspx

Article – Business Connectivity Services (BCS) Part IV – Creating an External List

Joy — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 14:12:22 +0000

Last article demonstrated how to create an External Content Type (ECT) using SharePoint Designer 2010 and set various options such as Limit Filter and Wildcards.

In this section, we will use the same ECT we created earlier and combine it with External List concept to surface the Employee data coming from the LOB system.

There are multiple ways of creating an External List and connecting it with an existing ECT to surface data within SharePoint. I will discuss the 02 most popular mechanisms.

Creating an External List using SharePoint Designer 2010

This is the easiest way in which you can create an External List and connect it with an ECT at the same time. Let's create an External List using SharePoint Designer 2010.

Exercise 1 – Open an existing ECT

Let's open the NorthwindEmployees ECT we created last time.

Fire-up SharePoint Designer 2010 by navigating to Start -> All Programs -> SharePoint -> Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010.
Click Open Site to bring up Open Site dialog box.
Enter the URL of the SharePoint site we created the ECT for Site name: and click Open.
Select the External Content Types from the Site Objects pane and wait until it retrieves all the existing External Content Types. After a few seconds, you will see the ECT we created last time.
NorthwindEmployees ECT
Click the NorthwindEmployees ECT from the right-hand side External Content Types pane to open the ECT and its properties.
ECT Summary Page

Exercise 2 – Creating an External List using SharePoint Designer 2010

Observe the ribbon and its options for the ECT.
From the Lists & Forms group in the ribbon click Create Lists & Forms button.

Ribbon for ECT
Create Lists & Forms for Northwind Employees dialog box will show up for you to configure the new External List. Provide a name for the new External List by filing List Name: field. I provided "Employees List" for this example.
Optionally you can select Create InfoPath Forms check-box to generate InfoPath for all the list view pages (Read List.aspx, DispForm.aspx, etc…) instead of creating ASP.NET pages.
Creating the External List
Click OK to create the External List. After few seconds, you will see the section External Lists in the ECT summary page with the new External List we created.

Creating the External List

Creating an External List using Web Browser

This way we can create the External List by using standard web browser application and using options in the SharePoint site.

Open your web browser and navigate to the SharePoint site which we created the ECT.
Select Site Actions -> More Options… to open Create dialog box.
Select the External List from the List Templates section and click Create button.
Creating the External List
Provide a name for the External List by filling Name: field. I provided "Northwind Staff" for this exercise.

Creating the External List
In the Data source configuration section, click "Select External Content Type" button to browse all the ECTs available in the current site collection.

Select the ECT
Select the Northwind Employees ECT from the External Content Type Picker dialog box and click OK.

Browse for the ECT
Now you will see that Data source configuration is filled with the ECT information automatically and click Create button to create the External List.

Creating the External List

View LOB data using the External List

Now that we have created an External List, or may be 02 if you tried both the options, it's time to look at the way it surfaces external data within SharePoint. It's very easy to do that.

From the Quick Launch, select the name of the list you created.
Try viewing individual Employee items, updating Employee records, deleting Employees records and inserting new Employee records using SharePoint External List.

External Data coming through the ECT & External List

Displaying an item with InfoPath Form

Editing an item with InfoPath Form

Inserting a new item with InfoPath Form