If you missed SharePoint Cincy 2011…

 

SharePoint Cincy 2011

If you missed SharePoint Cincy 2011 then you missed out on a full day of everything SharePoint! Two fantastic keynote presentations from Microsoft and Kroger, twenty breakout sessions with speakers from all over the country and a fantastic group of sponsors. I have not forgotten the most important group… the attendees! There was networking and social collaboration going on in every room and around every table.

SharePoint Cincy 2012 – March 16th 2012

Add March 16th, 2012 to your calendar.  Towards the end of the day I was frequently asked “when is this going to be done again?”  During the 5:00 update the SharePoint Cincy team announced that due to the success of this first event that they are going to do it again. So, see you in March 2012.

 

Thanks to the speakers

(Notice how many of these are local talent. The Cincinnati area has a strong base of SharePoint expertise!)

Fred J. Studerstuder, Microsoft Corporation
Catherine AllshouseCatherine, The Kroger Company
Tim Beamer, Dell
Scott Brickey, Strategic Data Systems
Mike Buob, Sogeti, USA
Steve Caravajal, Ph.D., Microsoft Corporation
Bill Crider, Ascendum
Mario Fulan, Information Control Corp (ICC)
Rob Joy, K2
Pat Kern, Procter & Gamble, Global Shared Services
Rob Kerr, BlueGranite
Sean McDonough, Idera
Jonathan Mast, SharePoint 911
Matt Morse, PointBridge
Raveen Rajavarma, Ascendum
Mike Smith, MAX Technical Training
Matthew Tallman, Sogeti, USA
Tom Washek, Microsoft
Eric Weissmann, DSC Consulting
Shane Young, SharePoint 911

Thanks to the sponsors and exhibitors

Without these people the event could not happen…

Ascendum
AvePoint
BrainStorm Inc.
CBTS
Center for Applied Informatics @ NKU
Dell
Information Control Corporation
K2
MAX Technical Training
Microsoft
PCMS IT Advisor Group
SDS - Strategic Data Systems
Sogeti
The Circuit

The Cincinnati SharePoint User Group
The Dayton SharePoint User Group

 

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SharePoint 2010 RSS Feed Reader using a Data Form Web Part

 

SharePoint Foundation does not include an RSS Viewer Web Part. But with SharePoint Designer 2010 you can easily create one using a Data Source and a Data Form Web Part.

 

Get the URL to the RSS feed

1. Go to the site with the RSS feed you want to use
2. Click the RSS icon or link to display the RSS feed
3. Copy the URL from the browser’s address bar

 

Create a Data Source

1. Open your site in SharePoint Designer 2010
2. In the Site Objects panel click Data Sources
3. In the ribbon click XML File Connection
     
4. Paste the URL you copied in step 2 into the Location box
     
5. Click the General tab and give the Data Source a name
     
6. Click OK

 

Create the web part

1. Open your home page or your web part page
2. Click the Design tab at the bottom of the window
3. Click where you want the web part
4. Click the Data View button and the ribbon an click Empty Data View
     
5. Click “Click here to  select a data source” and select your data source from the list
     
6. From the Data Source panel select the “Title” field. This may be different in your data source, but for my example it is “title” and is found in the “entry” section.
     
7. Click “Insert Selected Fields as” and choose “Multiple Item View”
     
   
   You now have a web part with a list of articles from the RSS feed. To complete this project you will want to change the article titles clickable links and remove the "title” column heading.
   
     
   

Add hyperlinks

1. Browser through the list of the fields in Data Source panel and find the hyperlink field – in my example it is “feedburner:origLink”
     
2. Click any one of the rows in your new web part
3. Click the Insert tab in the ribbon and then click Hyperlink
4. In the “Insert Hyperlink” window click button and select the field from step #1
     
5. If you would like for the RSS feed article to open in a new click, click the Target button and select New Window
       
6. Click OK and OK
7. You will probably also want to select the “title” column heading row and delete it
8. Save your work and test from a browser

 

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SharePoint Cincy – Last Chance to Sign Up!

Only one day left! You’ve got to be registered to attend.

SharePoint Cincy – March 18th, 2011

 

Northern Kentucky University’s Center for Applied Informatics and MAX Technical Training are bringing a major SharePoint event to the Cincinnati area! SharePoint Cincy will be held at the METS Center located in Erlanger, KY. The METS center is near the Cincinnati airport (CVG) and has lots of free parking.

See the site for the agenda, speakers and registration: http://www.sharepointcincy.com

 

Lots of great speakers will be there! (And I will be speaking there too :-) )

 

 

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SharePoint, JavaScript and Dates

 

How does your SharePoint site display a date?

The answer is… “it depends.”  Create a new task and schedule it for January 3rd, 2012. Now display the task list and see how the date is displayed.

Do you see this   or this

You would see the first if you had your SharePoint preferences (Regional Settings) set to a country where they enter dates as dd/mm/yyyy, such as France.

To play with the regional settings, click the Welcome menu at the top right of a SharePoint page and click My Settings. Then click My Regional Settings, uncheckmark “Always follow web settings” and pick a locale.

  

 

So what’s the problem?

If you are writing JavaScript code that needs to work with the date you may get the wrong date! As an example, if you wrote some JavaScript to read the Due Date from a task and changed the color or font for past due tasks you would probably use the Date.parse method to test the date:

var colDueDate = 7; // list column with Due Date

if (d.getTime() >= Date.parse(row[i].parentNode.childNodes[colDueDate].childNodes[0].innerHTML) )

{

  row[i].parentNode.style.backgroundColor='red'; // set the color

}

In this example, if today’s date is February 15th 2012 and the Due Date is March 1st 2012 then Date.parse would show the task as past due for the French users and not past due for the United States users.

JavaScript date references:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff743760.aspx

http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_parse.asp

 

The fix?

Display the date in a format that Date.parse likes. JavaScript first attempts to parse the date as an ISO formatted date. It then tries a few other rules, but none of those support dd/mm/yyyy. What we need to do then is deliver a date from SharePoint that will always work with JavaScript, and one that always works is yyyy/mm/dd. You could just pick a locale that uses that format, but your users are not likely to be happy with that.

What works in my projects is to add a calculated column to my list that generates yyyy/mm/dd format, hide that column in the display and use that column for my JavaScript date math.

1. Add a new column to your list and give it a name like DueDateYYYYMMDD
2. Add a formula:
            =YEAR([Due Date])&"/"&MONTH([Due Date])&"/"&DAY([Due Date])
   
    
3. Save your changes
4. Add this new column to your view
5. Add some tasks with a due date and verify that both Due Date and DueDateYYYYMMDD have the same dates, just formatted differently
6. Go to your Welcome menu, click My Settings, My Regional Settings and change your locale to France and confirm that while the Due Date column has changed, the DueDateYYYYMMDD is still the same

Make it do something useful

The JavaScript below is an update to the “SharePoint: Past Due / Late Tasks in a Task List” article. The code now works regardless of the SharePoint or user locale (date format) settings.

 

<script type='text/javascript'>

// customization trick from TechTrainingNotes.blogspot.com

var colDueDate = 6;  // This is the column with the due date in the YYYY/MM/DD format

var colToHide  = 6;  // This is the same column as above if you want to hide the custom date format

var colPastDue = -1; // optional column to display a custom JavaScript set message

var tableName = "Tasks"; // (from summary="")

// find the table for the list

var tables = document.getElementsByTagName("TABLE");

var table

for (x in tables)

{

  if (tables[x].summary == tableName)

  {

     table = tables[x];

     break;

  }

}

// hide the column with the special date (optional)

if (colToHide > -1)

{

  var TRs = table.getElementsByTagName("TR");

  for (x in TRs)

  {

    var toHide = colToHide;

    if (TRs[x].innerHTML)

    {

      if (TRs[x].innerHTML.toString().toLowerCase().indexOf("iframe") > -1 )

      { toHide += 1; }; // fix for 2007

      try {

      } catch (e) {}

      if (TRs[x].childNodes && TRs[x].childNodes.length >= toHide)

      {

        TRs[x].childNodes[toHide].style.display="none";

      }

    }

  }

}

// Color code the row based on a date calculation

var TDs = table.getElementsByTagName("TD");

var now = new Date();

for (i in TDs)

{

  if (TDs[i].className=="ms-vb2") //find the TDs styled for lists 

  {

    //find a row with a key phrase

    if (TDs[i].innerHTML=="Not Started"

         | TDs[i].innerHTML=="In Progress"

         | TDs[i].innerHTML=="Waiting on someone else" )   

    {

      // is this row (task) past due?

      if (now.getTime() >= Date.parse(TDs[i].parentNode.childNodes[colDueDate].innerText) )

      {

        // set the color

        TDs[i].parentNode.style.backgroundColor='red'; 

        // optionally display a message in another empty column

        if (colPastDue > -1)

          TDs[i].parentNode.childNodes[colPastDue].innerHTML='Past due!'; 

      }

    }

  }   

}

</script>

 

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SharePoint Datasheet View vs. 64 bit Office

 

If you try to use the SharePoint Datasheet view and get this error:

The list cannot be displayed in Datasheet view for one or more of the following reasons:

• A datasheet component compatible with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation is not installed.
• Your Web browser does not support ActiveX controls.
• A component is not properly configured for 32-bit or 64-bit support.

then you may have 64 bit Office (or any one 64 bit Office application such as Excel) installed!

 

Or… you may be using the 64 bit version of Internet Explorer!

 

Here is the Microsoft article that recommends not using Office 64 bit for most users:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee681792.aspx

I’ll summarize… “If you want any Office integration with anything else… don’t install 64 bit Office!

 

If you must use 64 bit Office and still want SharePoint and other things to still work… and you are willing to live with and issue or two…

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2266203

 

 

For most other datasheet errors just check the online help:

 

Status bar displays 'Read-only' or 'This view is read-only'

The selected cell, column, row, or the entire view is read-only. You cannot edit a cell, column, or row that is marked read-only. If the entire view is read-only, you cannot edit any portion of the view.

Portions of a view, or an entire view, might be read-only due to one or more of the following reasons:

• Certain columns, such as Created By and Modified, are always read-only. Values for these columns are entered automatically.
   
• The changes you made to the selected row or column have been submitted to the server. If there is no conflict or error, you will be able to edit the row or column after the changes have been saved.
   
• There is an unresolved conflict or error in the selected row or column. Resolve the conflict or error before attempting to edit the selected row or column.
   
• The list is set up to require content approval, and you are viewing the list in the All Items view.
   
• In the My Submissions view of a list that requires content approval, the Approval Status and Comment column are read-only. Only a user with Manage Lists right can edit these two columns.
   
• Attachments are read-only in a list that requires content approval. You cannot view or edit attachments in any of the views.
   
• The document in the current row has been checked out by a user. You cannot edit the columns in the row until the user checks the document in.
   
• You do not have permission to edit the column or row. Contact the list author for more information.

 

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