The gatherer index was not initialized. The content index must be remounted. If the index is still not initialized, remove it.

The domain account I was using to run the SPS services were giving me trouble by resenting its password automatically each time I restarted the SPS servers. So I decide to run the service with a new domain account. After I configure the service accounts and application pool accounts to use the new domain account, I couldn’t access any of the search administration pages. I was getting following error message.

The gatherer index was not initialized. The content index must be remounted. If the index is still not initialized, remove it.

To fix this problem, I had to make sure that “Configuration Database Administration Account” was running with the new domain account.

Showing Presence Information In SharePoint Web Parts

If you’ve visited a SharePoint site, you’ve probably noticed the Messenger-style icons in front of people’s names corresponding the IM status. When you hover the mouse pointer over that icon a lot of additional Messenger and Outlook functionality becomes available: you can send an email to that person, plan a meeting, … Isn’t the SharePoint – Office integration great? A nice example is the Members web part:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2004/05/04/125703.aspx

Deploying SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Shared Services at Microsoft

Customers frequently ask Microsoft about the methods employed and lessons learned when its own products and technologies are deployed and used in the company.

This white paper is for Microsoft customers who are deploying or evaluating the deployment of SharePoint Portal Server 2003 for their intranet portal infrastructure. Further, it is for customers with a need to support multiple internal portal sites. The experiences documented in this white paper are most relevant to medium and large sized organizations.

Read the article here

Operation considerations before using Shared Services in Portal farm environment

Organizations should consider the following before providing or using Shared Services:

• Farms providing and using Shared Services must be running the same version of SharePoint Portal Server using the same language.
• A firewall cannot be used between server farms providing and using Shared Services. Both server farms must be on the intranet, on the extranet, or in a perimeter network (also known as DMZ, demilitarized zone, and screened subnet).
• Back up the server farm before configuring it to provide or use Shared Services. After the server farm has been configured for Shared Services, the operation cannot be undone.
• Some services and scheduled tasks in a server farm need to be turned off before the server farm is set up to use Shared Services. These services and tasks include the Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server Search service (SharePointPSSearch), search schedules, profile import, and the audience compilation schedule.
• After configuring a server farm to provide Shared Services, all other portal sites on that server farm become child portal sites.
• Server farms providing and using Shared Services must belong to the same domain or trusted domain.
• Services are shared at the server farm level. All portal sites on a server farm that uses Shared Services will, therefore, be child portal sites.
• A child portal site can never be changed into a parent portal site.
• When the server farm is configured to use Shared Services, services that are no longer required on the server farm using Shared Services are disabled.
• Backup the server farm immediately after configuring it to use Shared Services in order to preserve the initial state and configuration of the farm.

Security Considerations

• The portal site application pool for the server farm using Shared Services is, by default, a member of the "db_owner database role" in SQL Server on the profile, component settings, and content databases for the parent portal site.
• The configuration database administration account for the server farm using Shared Services is a member of the db_owner database role in SQL Server on the configuration database for the server farm providing Shared Services.

Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Intranets

The Solution Accelerator for Intranets is a collection of documents that present a prescriptive and tested approach that is supported by Microsoft, for designing, deploying, operating, and growing an effective intranet solution. For the development of an intranet solution based on SharePoint Products and Technologies, the Accelerator resources address issues that are not discussed in the product documentation, such as planning for service readiness, resource requirements and capacity. Also covered are topics such as systems monitoring, backup and restore processes, planning for growth and disaster recovery.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7cdc1f2d-f550-49e0-9b74-318da11ba1b4&DisplayLang=en

Monitoring SharePoint Usage through an ASP.NET Web Application

It is a common requirement to gather information around the Windows SharePoint site usage. Organizations prefer to find out the popular sites in their organizations are or what external WSS sites attract the most number of visitors. This will provide information necessary for an organization to identify the important sites in their environment and properly manage them with extra resources if necessary.

One of the common complains around accessing theses data are the inflexibility of gathering information in a central location. The administrator will have to navigate to the selected SharePoint site administration pages to access the data. This will become a more time consuming exercise when the administrator need to collect usage data from larger number of SharePoint sites.

In this article, I am looking at creating an ASP.NET web application that will populate a collection of SharePoint sites in a drop down list for a given SharePoint site collection. The web application will display the usage details of the selected SharePoint site from the list. This will help the SharePoint administrator to gather all SharePoint usage data from a central location with out have to navigate many different SharePoint site locations.

http://www.15seconds.com/issue/050623.htm

Sharepoint Datagrid sorting?

Following is an email I received from a reader regarding DataGrid sorting problem in SharePoint

Hello,

I have read several of your articles which have really helped To get me started developing Web Parts for Sharepoint. I was just wondering if you have written or know of any articles dealing specifically with consuming events in a datagrid (sorting) in a web part? I have designed an "Active Directory Contact List" which pulls in users, addresses, and phone numbers directly from Active Directory.

It works very well except I have not been able to get it to sort. Thanks for your help,

Tim Andrews, MCSE, CCA

Hi Tim

I haven't written any articles around this sorting problem. But I believe it is got to do with not firing up the events in the web part.

This mainly happens when you don't write the event handler code in CreateChildControl method. At the same time, put the data population method for your datagrid in the CreateChildControls method too.

Good luck.

Wow, that was it. You da man! Maybe I'll send you a copy of it when it's done, THANKS!

TIM

And he sure did,

I received the code today and going to play around it.

Thanks Tim

SharePoint customisation through FrontPage 2003

Following is an email I received from a reader that got in trouble customising the SPS through FrontPage 2003.

Gayan,

How u doing ? Quick question. I have altered a page is FrontPage 2003
and after that If I create a document Library its doesn't appear on
side task, for e.g If you look at corner where it says Documents, If I create another it doesn't appear. My manager wants to fix that so people can be able to use it without using MF 2003.

I looked for solution on your site and MSD2D.. I will really appreciate your help in this matter.

Best Regards
Attiq Khan


Hi

Ok.. How about you open the home page again and replace the documentlibrary web part with a one you know its working?

Ex: Create a new WSS site. Add some document Libraries...make sure its working fine. Then open the new WSS site in Front page. Select the Split window and select Share Documents web part from design view and copy theHTML for the web part.

Now.. open the WSS site that having the problem and replace the HTML.

Let me know, how did it went...

Gayan,

Thanks for your help, yes It did work, u can copy the html and then paste it in WSS Sites but the problem is that when you that your table structure gets messed up, then you have to do some Html to fix the page format.

The HTML structure shouldn’t get messed up if you copy the web part code and replace it inside the correct HTML tag. Even if you do a mistake, it shouldn’t be hard to get the original look and feel by playing around with the HTML. (That if you are familiar with HTML)

Creating custom Area Templates

I came across following article when I was looking at developing a custom Area Template for a SharePoint Portal site. It contains information around

• Portal Server Styles
• Style Sheets
• Templates
• WSS Themes

http://www.centrical.com/item/282/catid/12.aspx

How to Customize the Left Navigation Bar of SPS Portal Home Page

This is a very good article explains how to customise the SharePoint Portal server navigation using out of the box Table of Content web part…..

http://www.msd2d.com/Content/Tip_viewitem.aspx?section=Sharepoint&category=Web+Parts&id=80dc07d5-a9bd-4be3-ace2-355a4c44db88

TechNet Webcast: SharePoint Portal Server 2003: Organizing Sites and Topics - Level 200

See how to use Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 as a tool to organize and navigate throughout your enterprise. This will examine how to use the site registry to catalogue and navigate SharePoint sites, and use the Topic functionality to organize and presenting information stored throughout an organization in any of a number of forms and locations. Join this webcast to learn how to configure the navigation of the site, set up collaborative areas, publish information, and customize the look and feel of the portal.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032253795&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Migrating to SharePoint Portal Server 2003 - Level 300

This presentation will review several recommended strategies and solutions for upgrading and migrating to Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003. This live webcast which will also cover the new SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Document Library Migration Tools. (Smigrate.exe, Spout.exe, Spin.exe)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032252551&Culture=en-US

Changing the Regional Settings of a SharePoint Portal Site

I always get asked how to change the Date and time format from US format to Australian in SPS Portal site. By default the portal get installed with US regional settings.

Click Site Settings – Manage Security and Additional Settings – Modify regional Settings

Select English(Australia) from Local Dropdown list
Select (GTM + 10.00) Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney) from the Time Zone dropdown list
Select Time format either 12 Hours or 24 Hours

Click OK

Popup window code

Following is an email I received from a reader, regarding one of my articles

Hi Gayan,

I just wanted to thank you for the write-up you did on pop-up windows in c# at CodeGuru It worked perfectly for me. When I have time I’ll check out your website for more useful information.

Thanks,
Tracy Rogers

Session state can only be used when enableSessionState is set to true,

Following is an email I received regarding SharePoint development. I thought you guys may benefit from the answer one day if you are in to SharePoint Development

Hi Gayan

when I tried to log in and it gave me this error
stating :

Server Error in '/Supresta' Application.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------

Session state can only be used when enableSessionState is set to true,
either in a configuration file or in the Page directive
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the
current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information
about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Exception: Session state can only be used when
enableSessionState is set to true, either in a configuration file or in
the Page directive

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current
web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the
exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Do I have to enable session in Sharepoint or My application I remember I
have it enabled and I also checked it.

Anyways I really appreciate your help.


Best Regards
Attiq Kham

I had this problem few times and didn’t get any time to figure out what’s going wrong. But you can use the View state rather than the session state. View state works fine. I will have a look to find out how to get the Session state working.

Debugging is not supported under current trust level settings.

Following is an email I received regarding SharePoint development. I thought you guys may benefit from the answer one day if you are in to SharePoint Development

Hi Gayan,

I have read your article on DevX about Sharepoint it was very helpful. I am new
to sharepoint I am running under a problem where I need to run an Asp.NET
application on the same server under which I am running Sharepoint portal
server, as u know U have to exclude the path if you will use any external
Asp.Net program. Well I did that but I am having error stating..

Server Error in '/Supresta' Application.

Debugging is not supported under current trust level settings.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current
web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error
and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.Web.HttpException:
Debugging is not supported under current trust level settings.Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web
request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be
identified using the exception stack trace below.

Please advice me where is the error.

Best Regards

Attiq Khan

I believe you have already added your DLL and the pdb files to the SharePoint Server BIN directory. You need to make sure the web.config file of the SharePoint is updated as display below,
Change the line
<trust level=" WSS_Minimal" originUrl="" />
To
<trust level="Full" originUrl="" />
By default, the original trust level is “WSS_Minimal”. This will prevent developers from debugging and adding new application to the SharePoint Server.

TIPS SharePoint Tray Web Part

If you are familiar with TRIM Context you will be familiar with ‘Trays’ and how ‘Trays’ enable you to view and access records that you are storing, or that you need to perform actions on. TIPS SharePoint provides users with access to TRIM Context Trays through the TIPS SharePoint Web Part.

Provides access to TRIM trays

• Records In
• Records Due
• Records In or Due
• Work Tray
• Recent Documents

All security applied in TRIM Context is carried through to TIPS SharePoint. Therefore, users will only be presented with records and information they are authorised to view and access.

Future of the tray web part

• Next version will update menus to version 2.0 menus
• Workflow/Activity due tray
• Ability to display detail pane metadata based on record type

TIPS Web Part

http://www.uniqueworldsoftware.net/

TIPS SharePoint

TIPS SharePoint is a connector that seamlessly integrates TOWER Software TRIM Context and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

TIPS SharePoint provides users with a single view and access to all their corporate information (including TRIM records & documents, file server, email, collaboration site and intranet) within the rich, easy to use SharePoint interface.

Main Features

• Unified Search – allows users to search both TRIM and non-TRIM content sources in one click
• Automatic Notification – ability to set up automatic e-mail alerts on search queries, for new matching records/documents or changes to existing records/documents
• TRIM documents/records via Intranet – ability to view TRIM records/documents in the browser
• Check out/Check in – ability to check out and check in TRIM records/documents in browser
• Unified Taxonomy – ability to integrate with the TRIM Business Classification schema with SharePoint topics for easy taxonomy navigation
• TRIM records/document Security – maintain TRIM security on all records/documents through an integrated authentication model
• Personalised Information Relevant To You
• Provides the user with single access to key applications such as TRIM, Exchange e- mail,calendar, team collaboration sites, alerts to documents and other business applications
• Integrated view of relevant information from various applications
• Single page with personalised access to information for users
  
  
  
  
• Search Across Multiple Content Sources
  Search TRIM and non-TRIM content sources
  Set up alerts on records/documents or search queries providing automated e-mail alerts of changes or availability of new matching records/documents

http://www.uniqueworldsoftware.net/

Backing Up and Restoring Servers on the Server Farm

I was trying to back up a Medium SharePoint Server farm and having a lot of interesting challenges. Especially around the necessary accounts and their rights for SQL and SPS. Following is some information that may help you guys if you looking at doing this. It was taken from SharePoint Portal Server Administrator manual

Backing Up and Restoring Servers on the Server Farm
You can back up and restore an entire server farm, an entire portal, or individual components of a Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 deployment by using the SharePoint Portal Server Data Backup and Restore utility. You can start the utility from the SharePoint Portal Server group on the All Programs menu.

Important You must install the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 client tools on the front-end Web server from which you run the backup and restore process in a server farm.

To back up or restore an image successfully, the following accounts must have access to the directory containing the backup files:

• The service account for SQL Server must have write access to the directory.
• The search service and database access accounts for search must have write access to the directory.
• The current user must have write access to the directory.

The current user must also have the following rights:

• Read access to all SQL Server databases
• Write access to all site databases and the configuration database
• Membership in the local administrators group on the document management server
• Administrator rights on the database server, either as a member of the local administrators group or as a member of the SQL Server 2000 System Administrators server role

The SharePoint Portal Server Backup and Restore utility successfully backs up and restores almost all of the data in your server farm. However, custom Web Parts will need to be reinstalled on every front-end Web server in the server farm. To avoid having to reinstall these custom Web Parts, you have the option of using the operating system backup and restore utility before using the SharePoint Portal Server Backup and Restore utility.

Developing Web Parts for SharePoint Portal Server 2003 in .NET

SharePoint allows information workers to create powerful personalized interfaces by simply dragging and dropping pre-defined Web Part Components. Web Parts are components that enable non programmers to gather information they care about and customize the appearance of Web pages. For example, one Web Part might display a user's appointment calendar; another might create a graph showing current sales figures; and a third might show a list of new business topics, each of which functions as a link to a video or audio presentation. Developers can create these Web Part components and make them available to SharePoint users, letting them build customizable pages that meet their needs. This article shows you how to build and consume a simple Web Part.

http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/17518

Usage Analysis Processing in Windows SharePoint Services Sites

It is a common requirement to gather information around the Windows SharePoint site usage. Organizations prefer to find out what the popular sites in their organizations are or what external WSS sites attract the most number of visitors. This will provide information necessary for an organization to identify the important sites in their environment and properly manage them with extra resources if necessary.

Windows SharePoint Services contains several components available from out of the box to collecting information regarding site usage. Usage Analysis Processing is one of the components providing usage reports on Windows SharePoint Services sites. This information will help organizations to identify which sites and sub sites are visited most.

http://www.msd2d.com/Content/Tip_viewitem_03NoAuth.aspx?id=da2291d8-d800-482b-9198-eaac1d02e8d8&section=Sharepoint

Retrieving SharePoint Site Information in an ASP.NET Web Application

It is a common requirement to access site specific information of a SharePoint site in a central location. Currently the SharePoint site information is available through number of different SharePoint Administration pages. This makes gathering information of a site difficult by making the Administrators remember the various places they need to navigate to access the necessary information. This exercise gets more difficult and frustrating when you have to gather information for multiple sites. Just think about all the navigation you will be doing back and front to access information of different sites.

http://15seconds.com/issue/050512.htm