Gutxieneko segurtasuna InfoPath Inprimakiak behar diren

I needed to meet a security requirement for an InfoPath form today. In this business situation, a relatively small number of individuals are allowed to create a new InfoPath form and a much wider audience are allowed to edit it. (Hau da, berri-kontratatu on-barnetegi inprimaki Giza Baliabideetako ek erabiltzen duen workflow bat jarri du abian).

Helburu hori bete ahal izateko, Sortu sortu dut bi baimen mailak ("create and update" and "update only"), broke inheritance for the form library and assigned permissions to a "create, eguneratu" user and a separate "update only" Erabiltzaileak. The mechanics all worked, but it turned out to be a little more involving than I expected. (Sentitzen duzu, pixka bat bada, dar-dar SharePoint baimenak, begiratu blog post honetan). The required security configuration for the permission level was not the obvious set of granular permissions. To create an update-only permission level for an InfoPath form, Honako hau egin nuen:

  1. Berri bat sortzeko baimenik maila.
  2. Garbitu kanpoan aukera guztiak.
  3. Selected only the following from "List permissions":
    • Elementuak editatu
    • Ikusi elementu
    • Ikusi aplikazio orrialdeak

Aukera horiek hautatzean, erabiltzaileak inprimaki bat eguneratzeko, baina ez da sortu.

The trick was to enable the "View Application Pages". There isn’t any verbage on the permission level that indicates that’s required for update-only InfoPath forms, baina bihurtzen da.

Create-and-Update was even stranger. I followed the same steps, 1 bidez 3 Goiko. I had to specifically add a "Site Permission" aukera: "Use client integration features". Berriz, deskribapena dago, ez du dirudi InfoPath inprimaki bat egon behar da, behar bezala, baina ez da.

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Duten “-En artean,” Feeling; SharePoint Consulting buruzko oharrak

Tamalez, phase one of my last project has come to a close and the client has opted to move ahead by themselves on phase two. We did our job too well, as usual 🙂 I’m now between projects, langile bezala, nire burua aholkulariak denbora berezi bat (as opposed to independents who must normally live in perpetual fear of in-between time 🙂 ). We staff consultants fill this time in various ways: Salmentak folk proposamenak idazteko lan-; betetzeko norbait edo hau edo lanpostu bakoitiak pertsona bat bultzatuko; studying; Blogak :). It’s hard to plan more than a few days in advance. At times like this, izan dut denbora pixka bat, berriz, nire eskuak, I like to reflect.

I’m almost always sad to leave a client’s campus for the last time. We consultants form a peculiar kind of relationship with our clients, unlike your typical co-worker relationship. There’s the money angle — everyone knows the consultant’s rate is double/triple or even more than the client staff. You’re a known temporary person. As a consultant, you’re a permanent outsider with a more or less known departure date. Oraindik, bazkaria jan bezeroarekin, hartu itzazu afaria eta / edo edariak egiteko, erosteko cookieak taldearentzat, kafea eskailerak joan, eman / jasotzeko opor txartelak — all the kinds of things that co-workers do. On one hand, you’re the adult in the room. You’re an expert in the technology which puts you in a superior position. Beste alde batetik,, you’re a baby. On day zero, aholkulariek ez dakit izenak, the places or the client’s lingo. Most times, aholkulariak inoiz ikasten guztiak.

Gauzak ongi, you become very well integrated with the client’s project team. They treat you like a co-worker in one sense, and confidant in another. Since we don’t have a manager-style reporting relationship with the client, the project team often feels a little free to air their dirty laundry. They let their barriers down and can put the consultant into an awkward position, inoiz egiten duten ere konturatu.

Consultants often don’t get to implement phase two and that never gets easy for me. I think this is especially hard with SharePoint. Phase one of of your typical SharePoint project covers setup/configuration, gobernantza, taxonomia, oinarrizko eduki mota, etc. eta alderdi askotan, ra luzea zenbatekoak, extremely detailed discovery. That’s how I view my last project. We did all the basic stuff as well as execute some nice mini-POC’s by extending CQWP, BDC konexioak ezartzeko behar PeopleSoft, sartu SharePoint Designer workflow-rekin nahiko konplexua, touched on basic KPI’s and more. A proper phase two would extend all of that with extensive, ia pervasive BDC, Benetan polita workflow, fina sintonizatuta eta hobea bilatu, Erregistro zentro, excel zerbitzuak eta seguruenik garrantzitsuena, reaching out to other business units. Baina, ez da niretzat izango, and that’s sad.

Hau azken esperientzian oinarritutako, I think it’s fair to say that a proper enterprise SharePoint implementation is a one year process. It could probably legitimately run two years before reaching a point of diminishing returns. Details matter, jakina.

That’s the consultant’s life and all of these little complaints are even worse in a SharePoint engagement. Nik aurretik idatzitako, SharePoint’s horizontal nature brings you into contact with a wide array of people and business units. When you’re working with so many people, beraz, modu asko SharePoint duten enpresa bihurtu eraginkorragoa lagun dezake ikus dezakezu, denbora aurreztu, gauzak hobeto… but you don’t always get to do them.

Begiratu ohi dut atzera nire lehen lana unibertsitateko out, before starting a consulting career 1995. We did get to do a phase two and even a phase three. Those were nice times. On the downside, Hala ere,, that means that that would mean a lot of routine stuff too. Managing site security. Tweaking content types. Creating views and changing views. Dealing with IE security settings. Restoring lost documents. Blech! 🙂

Nire aldartea malenkonia arren, Ezin dut imajinatu leku bat nahiago dut (espiritu de goodly hornidura epela hondartza batean izan ezik).

Ezin dut itxaron hurrengo inplementatu SharePoint enpresa proiektua hasteko.

(Ezer apropos, Blog sarrera gehienak idatzi nuen batean NJ Transit autobus. I don’t think I made any friends, but one CAN blog on the bus 🙂 )

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Igandea Funny: “Oraindik ez dute txarto”

Back near 1999, I was spending a lot of weeks out in Santa Barbara, CA, working for a client, leaving my poor wife back here in New Jersey alone. I dearly love my wife. I love her just as much today as I did when she foolishly married me 1,000 years or so ago. Nonbait, lerro zehar, I coined a phrase, "special fear", as in "Samantha has special fears." She as a special fear of "bugs", which to her are not flies or ladybugs, but rather microbes. She’s afraid of this or that virus or unusual bacteria afflicting our son, or me, but never really herself. (She is also specially afraid of vampires, miniature evil dolls (especially clowns) and submarine accidents; she has out-grown her special fear of people dressed in Santa Claus outfits).

Egun bat, my co-worker and I decided to drive up into the nearby mountains near Ohai. At one point, we got out of the car to take in the scene. When we got back into the car, I noticed that a tick was on my shoulder. I flicked out the window and that was it.

That night, I told her about our drive and mentioned the tick. The conversation went something like this:

S: "Oooo! Those are bad. They carry diseases."

P: "Well, I flicked it out the window."

S: "They are really bad though. They can get under your skin and suck blood and transfer bugs. You better check your hair and make sure there aren’t any in your head!"

P: In a loud voice: "My God! CAN THEY TAKE OVER YOUR MIND???"

S: Literally reassuring me: "No, they’re not THAT bad."

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Azkarra eta erraza: Ireki automatikoki InfoPath SharePoint Designer-posta From formularioa

UPDATE: Madjur Ahuja points out this link from a newsgroup discussion: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms772417.aspx. It’s pretty definitive.

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We often want to embed hyperlinks to InfoPath forms in emails sent from SharePoint Designer workflows. When users receive these emails, they can click on the link from the email and go directly to the InfoPath form.

This monster URL construction works for me:

http://server/sites/departments/Technical Services/InformationTechnology/HelpDesk/_layouts/FormServer.aspx?XmlLocation=/sites/departments/Technical Services/InformationTechnology/HelpDesk/REC REM RED Forms/REC2007-12-18T11_33_48.xml&Source=http://server.corp.domain.com/sites/departments/Technical%20Services/InformationTechnology/HelpDesk/REC%20REM%20RED%20Forms/Forms/AllItems.aspx&DefaultItemOpen=1

Replace the bolded red text with the name of the form, as shown in the following screenshot:

image

Note that there is a lot of hard-coded path in that URL, as well as a URL-encoded component. If this is too hard to translate to your specific situation, try turning on alerts for the form library. Post a form and when you get the email, view the source of the email and you’ll see everything you need to include.

Astute readers may notice that the above email body also shows a link that directly accesses the task via a filtered view. I plan to explain that in greater detail in a future post.

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Produktuak Merkataritza pentsatzen

Jarri dut SharePoint Designer luzapenak proiektua at sortu CodePlex lehenago aurten, eta nahiz eta oso esparrua oso mugatua, Hori izan da deskargatuko balioesteko dut 40 to 60 (nahiz eta, seguru asko, 100) companies in just about two months. That indicates to me that there’s a market for that solution and if I were to successfully commercialize it, that could translate into a goodly amount of beer 🙂

Nire background da benetan askoz produktuaren garapenean eta zer gehiago behar da, goi-Notch produktu bat ekartzeko ezagutzen dut, gisa bat CodePlex hobby proiektuaren aurka, to market. In my iraganeko bizitzaren, Produktuaren arduraduna izan naiz I&D for all software products. The difference between then and now is that I’m a consultant now working for an (bikaina) aholkularitza enpresa (Conchango). Aurretik, Osoa enpresa bat izan nuen nire atzean, eta nire aurrean, selling and supporting the products we brought to market. Gaur egun, Bakarrik nuke.

Hainbat produktu kontuan ideia daukat, but I think the easiest would be to create a commercial version of the above-mentioned CodePlex project that uses that as a starting point and extends it further. My fuzzy off-the-cuff thinking is to charge something like $100 beti sustatzailearen mugagabea lizentzia eta $500 per production web front end. I think I would also give away the source code.

Duzu, pentsamenduak edo esperientziak galtzen ari zaren prest partekatu, Mesedez, utzi iruzkin bat, edo email me zuzenean. I’d like to hear opinions like:

  • Da guztiak merezi?
  • Marketing aholku praktikoak, dirua biltzeko, banatzeko.
  • Prezioei.
  • Laguntza.
  • Beste edozein iruzkina utzi nahi duzun.

It’s "easy" etorri produktua ideiak eta horiek ezartzeko, though many dozens of hours of work are required. The other stuff is not as easy for me.

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Igande goizean Funny: “Jesus Must Die”

Gure lehen erosi dugu (eta soilik) "luxury" car back when hurricane Floyd nailed the east coast of the U.S. We got a LOT of rain here in New Jersey and several days passed before life returned to normal. Just before Floyd struck, erabili Volvo eskaintza bat egin genuen 850 GL and after Floyd struck, drove it home.

It was our first car with a CD player. Like most new car owners, we went a little CD crazy, revived our dormant CD collection and went on long drives just to listen to CD’s in the car. Like all fads, this passed for us and we ended listening to the same CD over and over again. Gure kasuan,, it was Jesus Christ Superstar.

Bat (asko) brilliant pieces in that rock opera is sung by the establishment religious types, led by Caiaphas, the "High Priest". They sing their way into deciding how to handle the "Jesus problem" and Caiaphas directs them to the conclusion that "Jesus must die". The refrain on the song is "Just must die, must die, must die, this Jesus must die". You hear that refrain a lot in that piece.

At the time, my son was about three years old. You can probably see where this is going.

I came home from work one day and my son is in the living room playing with toys and humming to himself. I’m taking off my jacket, looking through the mail and all my usual walk-in-the-door stuff and I suddenly realize that he’s just saying, not really singing: "Jesus must die, must die, must die." I was mortified. I could just see him doing that while on one of his baby play dates at a friend’s house — probably the last play date with that baby friend.

We pulled that CD out of the Volvo after that 🙂

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Google Ba Onartu Nire Live Spaces Blog AdSense programa horretan

UPDATE: Bezala 03/09, I have found no way to integrate my live spaces account with Google Adsense. Microsoft’s system here seems to prevent all of the technical mechanisms that Google provides would-be adsense hosters. I tend to believe this is mainly a side effect of the security they’ve built into live spaces, not a direct effort to disable Adsense.

This is not a SharePoint post, but might be of interest to bloggers generally.

Someone commented on their Windows Live Spaces blog that Google affirmatively denied their application to participate in AdSense. She theorized that Google denied her because Windows Live Spaces hosts her blog. Hala eta guztiz ere, I was recently accepted into the program for my live spaces blog, so the policy has either changed or Google denied her for some other reason.

Jakina, I don’t see any obvious way to integrate Google AdSense into my live space, but it’s a start 🙂

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Master betearazteko / Xehetasunak Harreman pertsonalizatua zerrendak erabiltzea

Forum users frequently as questions like this:

> Kaixo,
>
> Mesedez, esan dit ez dira aukerak edozein zerrenda pertsonalizatu bat eraiki nahi izanez gero
> master eta xehetasun-mota (fakturak bezalako) without using InfoPath.
>

SharePoint kutxa eginbideak onartzen duten enpresa horrelako eskakizunak mota daudelarik batzuk eskaintzen.

Oro har,, one links two lists together using a lookup column. List A contains the invoice header information and list B contains invoice details.

Use additional lists to maintain customer numbers, product numbers, etc.

Use a content query web part (in MOSS only) and/or a data view web part to create merged views of the lists. SQL Server Reporting Services (SRS) is also available for the reporting side of it.

Hala eta guztiz ere, there are some important limitations that will make it difficult to use pure out-of-the-box features for anything that is even moderately complex. These include:

  • Size of related lookup lists vs. "smartness" of the lookup column type. A lookup column type presents itself on the UI differently depending on whether you’ve enabled multi-select or not. In either case, the out-of-the-box control shows all available items from the source list. If the source list has 1,000 elementuak, that’s going to be a problem. The lookup control does not page through those items. Horren ordez, it pulls all of them into the control. That makes for a very awkward user interface both in terms of data entry and performance.
  • Lookups "pull back" one column of information. You can never pull back more than one column of information from the source list. Esate baterako, you cannot select a customer "12345" and display the number as well as the customer’s name and address at the same time. The lookup only shows the customer number and nothing else. This makes for an awkward and difficult user interface.
  • No intra-form communication. I’ve written about this here. You can’t implement cascading drop-downs, conditionally enable/disable fields, etc.
  • No cascading deletes or built-in referential integrity. SharePoint treats custom lists as independent entities and does not allow you to link them to each other in a traditional ERD sense. Adibidez, SharePoint allows you to create two custom lists, "customer" and "invoice header". You can create an invoice header that links back to a customer in the customer list. Gero, you can delete the customer from the list. Kutxa Out, there is no way to prevent this. To solve this kind of problem, you would normally use event handlers.

It may seem bleak, but I would still use SharePoint as a starting point for building this kind of functionality. Though there are gaps between what you need in a solution, SharePoint enables us to fill those gaps using tools such as:

  • Event handlers. Use them to enforce referential integrity.
  • Custom columns: Create custom column types and use them in lieu of the default lookup column. Add paging, buffering and AJAX features to make them responsive.
  • BDC. This MOSS-only feature enables us to query other SharePoint lists with a superior user interface to the usual lookup column. BDC can also reach out to a back end server application. Use BDC to avoid replication. Rather than replicating customer information from a back end ERP system, use BDC instead. BDC features provide a nice user interface to pull that information directly from the ERP system where it belongs and avoids the hassle of maintaining a replication solution.

    BDC is a MOSS feature (not available in WSS) and is challenging to configure.

  • ASP.NET web form: Create a full-featured AJAX-enabled form that uses the SharePoint object model and/or web services to leverage SharePoint lists while providing a very responsive user interface.

The last option may feel like you’re starting from scratch, but consider the fact that the SharePoint platform starts you off with the following key features:

  • Security model with maintenance.
  • Menu system with maintenance.
  • "Master table" (I.E. Ohiko zerrendak) with security, built-in maintenance and auditing.
  • Bilatu.
  • Back end integration tools (BDC).

If you start with a new blank project in visual studio, you have a lot of infrastructure and plumbing to build before you get close to what SharePoint offers.

I do believe that Microsoft intends to extend SharePoint in this direction of application development. It seems like a natural extension to the existing SharePoint base. Microsoft’s CRM application provides a great deal of extensibility of the types needed to support header/detail application development. Although those features are in CRM, the technology is obviously available to the SharePoint development team and I expect that it will make its way into the SharePoint product by end of 2008. If anyone has an knowledge or insight into this, Mesedez, utzi iruzkin bat.

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Quick Tip: Edukia Query Web zatia, Lookup Zutabe balioa eta XSL

I have a column name in a content type named "Real Estate Location".

That column is of type "lookup".

Aldatu dut <CommonViewFields> eta ItemStyle.xsl zutabe erakusteko.

Sinple bat <xsl:balio hautatu =…> itzultzen itzuli barneko balioa dituen ordinalak posizio datuak, esate baterako,:

1;#Miami

Giza-friendly balioa lortzeko, erabili xsl ezik-ondoren, ikus daitekeen bezala:

<xsl:value-of select="substring-after(@ Real_x005F_x0020_Estate_x005F_x0020_Location,'#')"></xsl:balio du>

Erabili teknika hau, betiere, XSL transformazio balio lookup ari zaren lan egin eta behar giza-friendly balioa lortzeko.

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SharePoint Beagle abenduaren zenbakitako Up & Bizi

Asko ezagutzen hau dagoeneko, baina abenduaren edizioa SharePoint Beagle da zuzeneko.

Artikulu behin, nire ustez, irakurketa merezi.

Apur bat igo eman nahi dut nire lankide artikuluak (Natalya Voskrensenskya). She provides a screen-shot extravaganza while describing how she used custom lists, workflow, SharePoint Designer, data views and other elements to implement a self-service training feature in MOSS. She describes techniques that can be applied in many different business scenarios. Check out bere blog egiten zauden bitartean.

Ez ahaztu ikusteko nire artikulu as well 🙂 I wrote about using MOSS to help an HR department manage open positions.

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