In order to work around a KPI problem I wrote about here, I did some testing and discovered that KPI’s work against folders with meta data in the same way that they work against documents or list items. I proved it out by creating a new content type based on the folder content type and then added a few fields. I created some indicators and proved to myself that KPIs work as expected. This was welcome news. It’s not perfect, because the drill-down you get from the KPI against the folders is not exactly what you want. This isn’t too much a drawback in my case because 1) the end users don’t know any better and 2) the drill-down goes to a folder. They click the folder name and they are at the item. It’s two clicks instead of one, which isn’t the end of the world.

This flowed nicely with the work I was doing. I am creating a folder for every document that gets uploaded. This is done via an event receiver. Ut ex, it’s a piece of cake to keep the parent folder’s meta data in sync with the KPI-driven meta data from the file itself since the plumbing is already in place. Hoc mihi concedit KPI meum in ea, et comedent et 🙂

I modified the event receiver to add the folder and then set this new folder’s content type to my custom KPI-friendly content type. This bit of code did the trick:

 SPFolderCollection srcFolders = targetWeb.GetFolder("Documents").SubFolders;
  SPFolder addedFolder = srcFolders.Add(properties.ListItem.ID.ToString());

  SPContentTypeId kpiCT = novum SPContentTypeId("0x0120002A666CAA9176DC4AA8CBAA9DC6B4039F");
  addedFolder.Item["Content Type ID"] = kpiCT;
  addedFolder.Item.Update();

To locate the actual Content Type ID, I accessed that content type via site settings and copy/pasted it from the URL as shown:

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Odi illud admittere,, but I struggled with this one all day. My event receiver needs to update a field of its parent folder. This little bit shows how to do it:

privatis Irrita UpdateParentFolder(SPItemEventProperties Proprietates)
{

SPFolder thisItemFolder = properties.ListItem.File.ParentFolder;
thisItemFolder.Item["ZZ Approval Status"] = "Good news, omnes!";
thisItemFolder.Item.Update();


} // UpdateParentFolder

In hoc, Ego sum operantes cum a tabellae bibliothecam proprietates veniunt ab eventu ItemAdded.

Dolum est, ut non directe item Lorem ipsum SPFolder (i.e. properties.ListItem.Folder nulla sit). Pro, item in album scriptor ire et adepto coniuncta File lima folder est scriptor.

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I’m sure I’m not the first person to come up with this. Autem, I haven’t noticed anyone publish a trick like this since I started paying close attention to the community last July. Ita, Ego stipes hoc mallem de facili debug apicem.

I’m working on an event receiver that started to generate this error in the 12 alveare:

Error oneratisque et currit eventus susceptor Conchango.xyzzyEventReceiver in xyzzy, Version = 1.0.0.0, Culturae = neutra, PublicKeyToken=blahbalhbalh. Additional information is below. : Non objectum secundum posuit ad instantiam objectum.

I didn’t know where I had introduced this bug because I had done too many things in one of my code/deploy/test cycles.

I tried this solution to get my pdb in there with hopes that SharePoint’s 12 hive would show the stack trace, sed non fortuna. I don’t know if it’s possible and if someone does, placet me cognoscere 🙂

I know it’s possible to write your own log messages to the 12 alveare. Frankly, I wanted something a little less scary and quicker to implement.

It occurred to me that I could at least get some basic trace information by catching and re-throwing generic exceptions like this:

  experiri {
    UpdateEditionDate(Proprietates);
  }
  capiendos (Exceptio e)
  {
    mittent novum Exceptio("Dispatcher, UpdateEditionDate(): Exceptio: [" + e.ToString() + "].");
  }

This showed up in the 12 hive thusly:

Error oneratisque et currit eventus susceptor Conchango.xyzzyEventReceiver in xyzzy, Version = 1.0.0.0, Culturae = neutra, PublicKeyToken=blahblahblah. Additional information is below. : Dispatcher, UpdateEditionDate(): Exceptio: [System.NullReferenceException: Non objectum secundum posuit ad instantiam objectum. at Conchango.xyzzyManagementEventReceiver.UpdateEditionDate(SPItemEventProperties proprietatum) at Conchango.xyzzyManagementEventReceiver.Dispatcher(SPItemEventProperties proprietatum, String eventDescription)].

That gave me all the detail I needed to track down that particular problem and I expect to use it a lot going forward.

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This past week I was implementing an "evolving" solution for a client that uses BDC and SPQuery and ran into some difficulty using SPQuery against a document library containing folders. Imo linea: assign "recursive" Ad secundum proprium quaestionis.

Missionem meam:

• Die Lune, Ego upload a tabellae et conpleamus aliqua notitia meta.
• Sequenti septimana, I upload a new document. Much of this new document’s meta data is based on the document I uploaded on Monday (which we call the "master document").
• Diximus creavit textus muneris ut suggero a latitudo autem ante faciem BDC-familiaris interface ut album ut users ut facile locus Lune per tabellae quaestionis titulus.
• A BDC data column provides a friendly user interface. (Hæc est pars agminis conatu ad usura BDC pro amiciores Lookup).

Latitudo autem ante faciem ultima BDC cultum adhibet query hoc facere lookup:

 // U2U tool usus ad assistunt in generatione hac quaestione CAML.
      oQuery.Query =
        "<Ubi>";

      si (titleFilter.Length > 0)
        oQuery.Query   =
          "  <Et>";

      oQuery.Query   =
        "    <Et>" +
        "      <Geq>" +
        "        <FieldRef Name=\"DocumentId\" />" +
        "        <Value Type=\"Text\">" + MinID + "</Valor>" +
        "      </Geq>" +
        "      <Leq>" +
        "        <FieldRef Name=\"DocumentId\" />" +
        "        <Value Type=\"Text\">" + maxId + "</Valor>" +
        "      </Leq>" +
        "    </Et>";

      si (titleFilter.Length > 0)
        oQuery.Query   =
          "    <Continet>" +
          "      <FieldRef Name=\"Title\" />" +
          "      <Value Type=\"Text\">" + titleFilter + "</Valor>" +
          "    </Continet>" +
          "  </Et>";
      oQuery.Query   =
        "</Ubi>";

In initialis stadio progressionem, this worked great. Autem, nos in introductus folders album solvere quaestiones et subito quidam, my BDC picker wouldn’t return any results. I tracked this down to the fact that the SPQuery would never return any results. We used folders primarily to allow multiple files with the same name to be uploaded but with different meta data. When the file is uploaded, partum a folder item ex album, et tunc permoveo lima ibi ID scriptor (Ego scripsit quod hic; weve 'had mixta results sed cum omnis aditus, illud bene operetur). The user don’t care about folders and in fact, don’t really understand that there are any folders. We have configured all the views on the library to show items without regard to folders.

I hit this problem twice as the technical implementation evolved and solved it differently each time. The first time, I wasn’t using the CONTAINS operator in the query. Without a CONTAINS operator, I was able to solve the problem by specifying the view on the SPQuery’s contructor. Instead of using the default constructor:

SPList oList = web.Lists["Documents"];

SPQuery oQuery = novum SPQuery();

Ego potius uteretur sententia machinator quod specificatur:

SPList oList = web.Lists["Documents"];

SPQuery oQuery = novum SPQuery(oList.Views["All Documents"]);

Ut problema solvendum et coepi praecessi adepto meus.

I then added the CONTAINS operator into the mix and it broke again. It turns out that the CONTAINS operator, ut mihi indicet, Sic uti non sit simplicior quam GEQ / LEQ operators. I did some searching and learned that the query’s ViewAttributes should be set to "Recursive", ut in:

oQuery.ViewAttributes = "Scope=\"Recursive\"";

That solved the problem for CONTAINS. In facto, hoc problema solvitur etiam pristinae quaerere et si fecissem peregit recursive primum attributum,, Nec vero causae occurrunt.

Quod visus operetur in aliqua dicentur SPQuery operators (GEQ/LEQ) et non alios, (Continet), copulata hoc, quod non videtur ad operari cum KPIs folder-document continens bibliothecis ducit me ad credendum quod aliqua SPQuery orthogonality exitibus.

Praecipua gratias,:

• At bonum folks U2U et machinatio eorum query.
• Magna est scriptor Michael Hoffer "discendi facere," blog nuntius, comments et responsa.

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UPDATE 02/29/08: I solved this problem by creating a folder and then assigning a content type to the folder which has the meta data I need for the KPIs. I described that in a little more detail here.

We have implemented a technical solution where users upload documents to a document library. An event receiver creates a directory and moves the file to that directory (using a technique similar to what I wrote about hic). We’ve successfully navigated around the potential issues caused by event receivers that rename uploaded files (mainly because users never start their document by clicking on "New" but instead create the docs locally and then upload them).

The meta data for these documents includes a Yes/No site column called "Urgent" and another site column called "Status". We need to meet a business requirement that shows the percentage of "Urgent" documents whose status is "Pending".

This is usually simple to do and I described something very much like this at the SharePoint Beagle with lots of screen shots if you’re interested.

In a nutshell, Fecit sequenti:

• Create a view on the doc library called "Pending".
• Configure the view to ignore folder structure.
• Create a KPI List.
• Create an indicator in the list that points to the doc lib and that "Pending" considerabit.

This simply does not work. The KPI shows my target (e.g. five urgent documents) but always shows the actual number of urgent documents as zero. Paradoxically, if you drill down to the details, it shows the five urgent documents in the list. I created a very simple scenario with two documents, one in a folder and one not. Here is the screen shot:

The above screen shot clearly shows there are two documents in the view but the "value" is one. The "CamlSchema" with blank document Id is in the root folder and the other is in a folder named "84".

It appears to me that even though you specify a view, the KPI doesn’t honor the "show all items without folders" setting and instead, confines itself to the root folder.

If I’m wrong, please drop me a line or leave a comment.

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