Category Archives: Tips and Tricks

Workflow Manager Installation Error: Adding host to Service Bus Farm

I was trying to get the new workflow engine installed and configured with SharePoint 2013 but was encountering an error in the Service Bus configuration step.
Installation Instruction for Workflow Manager and SharePoint 2013 Workflow Configuration:
The full installation steps are provided here (in a video series): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn201724.aspx and here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193478
The instructions provided above are pretty detailed [...]

Also posted in Installation, SharePoint, SharePoint Server, Workflow | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Sandboxing – Declarative Object Provisioning and Threads

So you say you can’t populate a list declaratively in SharePoint 2010 Sandboxed solutions?

Also posted in SharePoint, SharePoint 2010 | Tagged | 3 Comments

Best Practices–Disposing SharePoint objects

Good reference on MSDN documentation for guidance on good coding practices for SharePoint:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa973248.aspx#sharepointobjmodel__otherobjectsthatrequiredisposal
The SharePoint Dispose Checker Tool can give false positives (or negatives) so this documentation should provide additional guidance

Also posted in SharePoint | Tagged | Leave a comment

Creating a SharePoint BCS .NET Connectivity Assembly to Crawl RSS Data in Visual Studio 2010

Overview
In this post, I’ll walk you though how to create a SharePoint 2010  BCS .NET Connectivity Assembly in Visual Studio 2010.
We’re going to create an assembly that will allow us to Crawl RSS Feeds using BCS. 
Creating a BCS .NET Connectivity Assembly project in Visual Studio 2010
First, create a new project selecting the Sharepoint –> [...]

Also posted in Business Connectivity Services (BCS), Business Data Connectivity (BDC), External Content Types, FAST Search for SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Server | Tagged , | 3 Comments

SharePoint BCS Links

Overview
While investigating how to create and deploy custom .NET BCS Connectivity Assemblies, I came across a ton of good links that helped out with some specific issues, and I wanted to share them.
Clearing BCS Service Application Database
The following link describes a method of clearing out the BCS database in order to redeploy BCS custom assemblies [...]

Also posted in Business Connectivity Services (BCS), Business Data Connectivity (BDC), External Content Types, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Server | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Great Post on How SharePoint 2010 Load Balancing Works

Overview
In reviewing our client’s SharePoint 2010 / FAST farm topology, a lot of questions came up about how load balancing works in SharePoint 2010.  I came across blog post entitled: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The SharePoint Topology Service by Josh Gavant. 
It’s an excellent read and goes into some detail about [...]

Also posted in SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2010 Administration, SharePoint Server | Tagged | Leave a comment

Workaround For Enable-WSManCredSSP:This command cannot be executes because the setting cannot be enabled.

Overview
I came across an infuriating issue today after trying to re-enable WSManCredSSP after disabling it to get screenshots for my last blog post on setting up PSRemoting. (you’re welcome!)
When attempting to execute Enable-WSManCredSSP I got the following error:
Enable-WSManCredSSP : This command cannot be executed because the setting cannot be enabled. This can happen if no [...]

Also posted in FAST Search for SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2010 Administration | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Fixing “Cannot find type [Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server]” during FAST Search backup

Overview
While attempting to execute a FAST Server back-up following the directions on TechNet, we ran into the following error:
Cannot find type [Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server]: make sure the assembly containing this type is loaded.

This was an issue we hadn’t experienced in production, and were unsure how to resolve.
Solution
After searching around for a while, I found the following post [...]

Also posted in FAST Search for SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2010 Administration | Tagged , | Leave a comment

SharePoint 2010 Crawled Property Variant Type Codes

Overview
Ever have to deal with Crawled Properties in PowerShell, or look through FAST Search FFDumper logs and try to figure out what the type numbers mean?  I have found a couple of random blog posts that cover some, but not all of them, and I’ve tried to find a definitive list.
I finally came across a [...]

Also posted in FAST Search for SharePoint 2010, Search, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

No Results Showing Up in QRServer Queries in FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

Overview
FAST Search Server 2010 comes with a web application for executing FQL queries against the FAST index, called QRServer.  One of our clients was having an issue executing FQL queries, only getting data back that was being crawled by the FAST Web Crawler, and none of the SharePoint data being crawled by the FAST Content [...]

Also posted in Enterprise Search, FAST Search for SharePoint 2010, Search, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Server | Tagged , | Leave a comment