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I’ve been working with SharePoint 2010 and Word Automation Services quite a bit these days. I recently ran into an error that I just could not figure out. There’s very little out there on teh interwebs, and the only solution that I found sounded perfect. At first.

When attempting to convert a file from .docx to .pdf via Word Automation Services we were receiving:

Unrecognized attribute ‘allowInsecureTransport’. Note that attribute names are case-sensitive. (D:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\WebServices\WordServer\Proxy.config line 77)

This was a brand new SharePoint install and everything appeared to be configured correctly. The ONLY solution that I could find was to apply a .NET hotfix (KB976462). It made sense. It sounded perfect! However… the .dlls that the hotfix wanted to apply were at an older version than what was already on the SharePoint server. At this point, we opened a case with Microsoft… (more…)

On a normal day lately, I’ve been either migrating old 2003 sites to 2007, or finding ways to implement functionality that’s not exactly “out of the box” to accommodate various needs. This usually involves a few “related” lists, maybe some custom SPD workflow, and a DVWP or two. It’s fun! And then… I need to document what I’ve done for either the users to understand how to use it, and what to expect. Or more likely, for myself to refer to down the line when someone asks me to go back and support it

Sure, you can use the SharePoint wiki as-is. It’s fine. It “works”. But I like to take it a step or two further. Here are some “extras” that I implement on most wikis that I create these days. (more…)

Strange problems when attempting to add ListViews to the DispForm.aspx (kind of similar to the breakage of attachments of a customized EditForm.aspx).

If you use the trick http://www.sharepointology.com/setup/add-web-parts-to-dispform-editform-or-newformaspx/ to add web parts so that you don’t unghost the page… ListViews added will not display the title, or a border. They’re “stuck” with a default. If you convert it to a DVWP, everything’s snazzy.

If you want to use a query string filter, this also will not work. You will need a DVWP to do this.
TIP!
Add a LVWP to the page using the trick above, then open in SPD and Convert to DVWP. Then setup a query string parameter to filter the DVWP on. As long as you don’t start monkeying with the code, making these changes in SPD doesn’t seem to unghost the page.

I’ve recently upgraded from IE 8 to IE 9 on my Windows 7 machine and started noticing some strange behavior. When I want to save “bookmarks” I usually just drag the URL to a folder on my computer instead of actually creating a bookmark within the application. I seem less likely to forget about going back to them later this way.

Since the upgrade I’ve noticed inconsistencies with these shortcuts. When I double-click on them, some would open in a new tab while others would open in a completely new window. Those who know me would initially think “You have too many tabs open, so it’s opening the overflow into new windows” – but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

I’m not sure if it’s strictly the shortcuts from after the upgrade that are exhibiting this behavior, or just some of them (I haven’t done enough testing). I do know that at a minimum that it is not a random behavior – it’s always the same shortcuts that open in a new window.

My IE preferences are already configured to always open links and pop-ups in new tabs, so that wasn’t it, and viewing the properties of the shortcuts didn’t see to help either. I figured I’d try to edit the shortcuts and see if I could figure out what the difference was that caused this behavior. Bingo! I should have looked a little closer at the shortcut properties.

The shortcuts that opened in new tabs were “.url” files, while the shortcuts that opened in new windows are “.website” files. There’s about twice as much data in the shortcuts that open new windows, and all had different GUIDs. The shortcuts that opened in new tabs seemed to have all the same generic content with the exception of the URL propertly. Also, the .website shortcuts are called “Pinned Site Shortcuts” while the .url shortcuts are called “Internet Shortcuts”. I was able to copy the URL from one of the new-window shortcuts and paste it into one of the new-tab files and save it with a new name and it worked beautifully.

What a frustration. Now I have to figure out how to create the appropriate shortcut types on-demand.

Here is an example of the contents of a .website file:

[{000214A0-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Prop4=31,Page Title Here
Prop3=19,11
[{A7AF692E-098D-4C08-A225-D433CA835ED0}]
Prop5=3,0
Prop9=19,0
Prop2=65,2C0000000000000001000000FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF840000005C000000F0040000860300007A
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://google.com
IDList=
[{9F4C2855-9F79-4B39-A8D0-E1D42DE1D5F3}]
Prop5=8,Microsoft.Website.1E0E98C3.ED613691


And here is an example of the contents of a .url file:
[{000214A0-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Prop3=19,11
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://google.com
IDList=


Quick tip for you today! I need to do some math on months and don’t want require the users to enter a full date. I created the “Month” column as a number field, no decimals, not required, min value 1, max value 12. Now I’m able to do any calculation that I want on the month value, but my views and DVWPs display the number, and I want to be able to display it as the actual month from time to time.

Attempts:
I created a calculated column that I titled “MonthName”. Here are some quick formulas that you can use in your calculated column that will convert your 1-12 number into a month name.

=TEXT([MonthNumColumn],"mmmm") will give you “December” for a value of “12″
=TEXT([MonthNumColumn],"mmm") will give you “Dec” for a value of “12″
HOWEVER, this seemed to only return values for December and January – and they were not actually accurate.

I thought that perhaps it was because the numbers were not all 2 digit, so I created a second calculated column that I titled “MonthNN” and used this formula (I know, starting to go down the rabbit hole):
=TEXT([Month],"00")
And then adjusted the above calculated MonthName field to refer to this new calculated column. No change.

Then I attempted to use the “CHOOSE” function, but the “Month” field was not required and returned “#VALUE!” for any blank fields.

So I nested the CHOOSE function inside an IF statement, and it’s not the most elegant, but it works:
=IF(Month="","NA",CHOOSE(Month,"Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"))

Enjoy!