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Announcing August Cumulative Update for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0The Microsoft Office team has changed the way that it delivers hotfixes for reported problems. This change comes in the form of cumulative updates and critical on-demand hotfixes. The objective is to deliver high-quality fixes in an acceptable time and on a predictable schedule. Cumulative updates are scheduled for every two months, so customers can be better prepared to test and apply new updates. Those who need an emergency fix can request critical on-demand (COD) fix. For information, please refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953878. The detail of August Cumulative Update (CU) for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 can be found here: Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Wssmui.msp): August 26, 2008 Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: August 26, 2008 Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008 Customers are not needed to install these updates unless they are affected by specific problems described in the KB articles. And these cumulative updates will be rolled in to Service Pack 2. To upgrade from RTM to this new CU, you need to follow the path below: 1. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 2. The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1 3. the Microsoft Office Servers Infrastructure Update x86 x64 4. KB 953397: Excel Server Security Update x86 x64 5. KB 955586: Document Lifecycle Workflow Update 6. August Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Global) 7. August Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Local) 8. August Cumulative Update for Microsoft Office Servers After applied all these updates, run SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b” in command line. This need to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed. The version of databases should be 12.0.6327 after all these updates. For a better guided update process, customers would also like to check out the following guides. These articles provide a correct way to deploy updates, as well as known issues and how to do slipstream builds. Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx
Thanks Jie Li Technical Product Manager, SharePoint for this Nice Post, Published Monday, September 29, 2008 12:23 PM Project Server 2007: Moving a copy of Production to Test – Part 2I will be going deeper in this posting, particularly on the scenario of moving just the databases and then re-provisioning the site. But don’t expect me to be mentioning every single dialog box and permission that you require. I will be writing at a level whereby if you don’t understand what I am saying then perhaps you shouldn’t be doing this – or at least you need to read around a bit and then come back. For permissions see this blog posting, and for full details of full farm restore go here. Remember that any additional Process Accounts added to the SSP must still exist and be verifiable in the new system. Forgotten this one? Then go here. So the only extra I intend to say about full farm backup and restore is that it does not keep such things as LDAP forms based authentication extended sites and settings (Thanks Boris Bazant for this tip!). As I mentioned in my part 1 post – some external customization will need to be re-applied (e.g. additional web parts, server side event handlers in the GC). The scenario for the main part of the post is moving from my Production Server (BriSmith620) to my test system (A Hyper-V image called BriSmithV0832). I already have a working site which I don’t want to break, so this is a partial move – and the projects in my Production Server have workspaces both in the root site under PWA (the instance I am interested in is actually called CAL – created to troubleshoot some Calendar issues) and in another web application at Port 94. So I will be moving over 4 project databases and 2 content databases. I can’t move my port 80 to port 80 as it will break existing stuff – so I will move 94 to 94 and 80 to 8080. I have Issues lists with items in several projects – the aim will be to see these still working post migration… I’ve already backed up my 6 databases – and restored them with names Blog_Archive etc for the Project ones and Blog_80_Content and Blog_94_Content (actually on the same server with different names) so on with the restoration of my PWA site and content. First I just provision a site against the 4 databases. If you have restored the content db at this point it will fail – if you use the same name for the site – as a collection will already exist. And if you delete the site away goes your content – Catch 22. So we are leaving the content stuff for now… Usual stuff is entered for creation of a site
Click OK and wait for it to be provisioned…
And here we have it! (Must get round to those timesheets) Any customizations we had made in SharePoint would be gone (themes, top links etc.) but customizations in PWA would be retained (Notice the My Timecard edit to the menu name in the left nav bar). But of course none of the workspaces are found, and the issues and risks link also find no active issues for me. Next I will add the port 94 content db to a new Web Application on Port 94. I create a new Web Application and name the database the one I have restored. Didn’t bother with a screen shot, just changed the port to 94, put in a suitable account for the new application pool and put in the Blog_94_Content database name. Once this is active I can browse to the workspaces (assuming I know the names) and the issue is there – but clicking through to the issue detail gives a File Not Found SharePoint error.
The workspaces listed on the home page don’t link to port 94, but port 80, and the Project Workspaces page shows blank for the sites. By going to the Edit Site Address option the site can be entered for the project.
Once this is set and the workspace provisioning setting matched to the port 94 address that was in use on the other server the home page then shows the correct links and sees that I have active issues.
If I follow the link to the workspace, then the issues and click through to the issue detail it works – the file not found is resolved!
For larger jobs than this simple set of Projects the RelinkAllWSSSite tool from the Project Resource Kit comes in very handy. Now we have our port 94 sites all sorted – and we could just do the same for our ones that were on port 80 – and leave them on port 8080 – but that doesn’t get them back were they started. Stsadm export and import comes to our rescue. First I will add a new web application on port 8080 and use the port 80 content database from the original server. At this point we can browse to the sites just substituting http://brismithV0832:8080 for http://brismith620 to confirm they are there. To export and import we use stsadm –o export –url <full url> –filename <path to save site> –nofilecompression. In this case C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o export -url "http://brismithv0832:8080/CAL/Project1 with Workspace in PWA" -filename "C\backup\savesite.bak" –nofilecompression If on Windows Server 2008 then your command prompt will need to be running as administrator to avoid an Access Denied. You will get a long listing of progress (or you can use the –quiet flag) and hopefully it should finish with success! Now we can import, just using the default port 80 address to get our site where we want it (just change the URL and export to import. In my case I can also change CAL to Blog in the URL as my PWA site has changed. Once this is complete we have the site where we want it – we edit the site address as we did earlier and all should be working!
Along the way with the export/import we lost the task links – I will dig into this a bit more but I guess you might expect this as the export probably has nowhere to keep that information, and also I see my Active Issues count isn’t picking up the moved workspace issues. The best approach is certainly keep the workspaces away from your PWA site to start with. But the issue is still there – it still understand which project it belongs to.
I’ve stepped through with a single project so you understand the idea – you can speed things up with Powershell or just creating a batch file. If you go this route then stsadm –o enumsubwebs –url <url where sites are> >> c:\sitelist.txt will enable you to get a quick list of sites into a text file. Every requirement will be slightly different – full farm backup/restore will hopefully work for most, but the details I’ve given here should help when you want perhaps a partial move of single instances. Always consider customization too – usually you will need some manual steps for those. Let me know how this works for you. Thanks Brian Smith's for this outstadning Blog: Posted on Friday, September 26, 2008 6:58 AM Announcing the release of the August Cumulative Update for Project and Project Server 2007The Microsoft Office team has changed the way that it delivers hot fixes for reported problems by moving away from the current priority-driven hot fix release model to a scheduled delivery model. This change comes in the form of cumulative updates and critical on-demand (COD) hotfixes. The objective is to deliver high-quality fixes in an acceptable time and on a predictable schedule-every two months so its creates more predictability for customers. Customers who need an emergency fix can request a shorter turnaround time for a COD hotfix. Please refer to the following knowledge based article for more information: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953878 The August Cumulative Update (CU) for Project 2007 and Project Server 2007 (as well as the rest of the Office suite) is the first CU release. Releases will now happen very two months so the next ones are scheduled for October 08, December 08, etc… Install or not to Install? Our general guideline for applying hotfix is:
Installation Order Assuming you are running the released version of Project Server 2007, here is a high level procedure, please refer to the TechNet articles for detailed deployment steps:
Ideally Project Professional 2007 and Project Server 2007 should be on the same version but it is not a requirement:
Knowledge Base Articles and Downloads
Thanks for the Post:Provide best practices as well as tips and tricks on Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Microsoft Project Server 2007 IT Professional TechNet Webcast SeriesI just wanted to pass on word that starting October 1st, 2008, Michael Jordan (Lead Architect – MCS EPM Global Practice | WW COE for EPM) will present a series of Project Server 2007 webcast on TechNet targeted at IT Professionals. These 60 minutes webcasts will present in details key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007 specifically: · Solution Overview and System Elements · Solution Elements and Data Flow · Workload Scenarios and Reference Architecture · Network Communication · Server Administration · Maintenance and Monitoring · Deployment into a SharePoint Server Intranet Farm · Disaster Recovery · Virtualization
You need to register for the free of charge webcast by clicking the link; then you get emailed a link to sign on and participate in the web cast on its date and time (please note only the first two webcast are available for registration at this stage). Each TechNet webcast is recorded for later viewing which should be through the same registration URL. For a listing of all EPM webcasts on TechNet check the following: http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/epm.aspx
Michael Jordan’s Biography
Michael Jordan is the Lead Architect for Microsoft Services’ EPM Global Practice and member of the World Wide Center of Excellence. Michael has been with Microsoft for 8 years serving in technical roles from Application Development, Systems Engineering, SQL Database and Project Management. He has been working with EPM for the last 4 years architecting, troubleshooting and implementing large deployments at priority customer sites. As a member of the EPM Global Practice he performs a role as an extension to the Product Group by providing field feedback, spec reviews, product guidance and running customer programs for marketing initiatives.
Thanks to robert.m.hoover for this post, which is posd on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:30 PM Newly Published Project Professional Content for September
Now a days i noticed taht lot of people have question about the creation of Enterprise Custom Field in Project Server 2007. Now finally Microsft add this topic into their Office Learning Material. I hope you will enjoy this stuff(Thanks to Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Content Publishing team for the updating.) Use this article to learn how to create, import, insert, and rename a custom field. Watch this: Create a custom field This video walks you through the process of creating a custom field that is associated with a list, and that uses graphical indicators. Work with the Gantt Chart view This article provides information on how to use each part of the Gantt Chart view. Project Server Quick Reference Guide for project managers This quick reference guide displays all the tasks a project manager is likely to do with Project Server. A team member version is due out soon. Podcast: Britney Spears, the ultimate project manager This is a link to an external podcast about Britney Spears as the ultimate project manager. It is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but makes good points about project management skills in general. What’s all this talk about Web 2.0 This Office Hours article discusses Web 2.0 and software plus services model. Understanding How Microsoft Project ThinksThere are a number of factors that dictate how Microsoft Project “thinks”. The two main factors are:
The Scheduling Formula leverages three variables:
Many people say that the scheduling formula is: Units x Duration = Work When you initially assign a Resource to a Task, this is the formula that is leveraged. Let’s demonstrate: We will create Task 1 that is 5 days in Duration
We will now assign a Resource to this task
As soon as we assign this Resource to this task, Work changes to 40 hours. Here is the how that number was calculated: Units x Duration = Work
But using simple math, we can re-write our equation to solve for a different variable. Our original formula solves for Work:
But we could re-write the formula to solve for Units:
Or we could re-write the formula to solve for Duration:
So we have shown that The Scheduling Formula can actually be written three different ways: Units x Duration = Work
Now let’s prove that Microsoft Project also thinks this way. In order to demonstrate this, we must introduce The Task Type or the Type field:
By default, Type is set to Fixed Units. But there are actually three different Task Type variables:
Now to test Microsoft Project Using our original scenario, let’s force Microsoft Project to solve for Duration.
We will leave Type set to Fixed Units and change Work to 80 hrs
Here is how Duration was calculated: Work / Units = Duration
Returning to our original scenario, let’s force Microsoft Project to solve for Work.
Leave Type set to Fixed Units and enter 10 days Duration
Here is how Work was calculated: Units x Duration = Work
Returning to our original scenario, let’s force Microsoft Project to solve for Units
Change Type to Fixed Duration and enter 20 hours Work
Here is how Units was calculated: Work / Duration = Units
To Review: There are three different Task Types:
There are three different variables of the Scheduling Formula:
Depending upon how the Task Type is set in combination with which Scheduling Formula variable is altered dictates which variable Microsoft Project solves for. The Task Type and Scheduling Formula Cheat Sheet will help you control how Microsoft Project “thinks”:
See The Microsoft Project Task Type and Scheduling Formula Cheat Sheet here. See this article in Slide format here. See this article in Video format here. Purchase “The Cheat Sheet” Mouse Pad here. This Blog Belongs to PMConnection Articles, which released on August 21, 2008, 7:08pm How to Create Multi Color Summary Bar Based Upon PhaseThe following steps will show you how to create this:
Note that color formatting is dynamic and will adjust as Duration of the phase increases or decreases. 1. Must establish consistent Phase names. Example: - Planning 2. Must establish consistent Milestone names. Also useful to have Acronym for milestone names. Example: Milestone - Acronym 3. Open MS Project 4. Establish Phase Names and Milestone Names:
This Blog Belongs to PMConnection Articles, which released on Septemeber 21, 2008, 7:08pm
Microsoft Project Content Recently Published (July, August, September)Please find below an inventory of the content published for the past three months by the Office EPM UA team, feel free to forward this email to your customers and partners: Office Online
TechNet
Key Resources Enterprise Project Management
Project Desktop
IT Professionals Developers This Blog Belongs to Christophe Fiessinger’s Blog, which released on September 19, 2008, 7:08pm Thanks
Excellent Resource for Training of Sharepoint from MicrosoftThis Include the following Topics:
1. Work with document libraries
2. Work with calendars
3. Work with slide libraries
4. Work with workflows
5. Work with Excel Services
You can browse the below mentioned topic and gets the handful information.
Resources for learning Microsoft Office SharePoint Server PWA on a Root URLI was asked today whether it is possible to host PWA on a root URL ie http://pwa instead of as a suffix such as http://myserver/pwa.
The answer is "Yes"
The key to configuring PWA on a root URL is to check the "Use Project Web Access path as host header" check box during provisioning, along with entering the URL you wish to use (see below).
The URL will need to resolve to the IP address of WFE server(s)
You need to be mindful of the fact the host header in this configuration only applies to the instance of PWA and not the parent web application/site collection. The URL's for project related WSS sites will use the web application URL/AAM. Microsoft Release Office Project 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008On August 26, Microsoft Release new HotFix Package for Office Project Server 2007.
The HotFix Package Covered the following Issues:
You click to select the Restrict Updates to Project Web Access check box in Project Web Access (PWA). Then, if you manipulate some data in Project Professional, you may experience the following symptoms:
• The data is de-synchronized between the client and the server.
• Additional actual work is added for resources. • In the timephased data in the Resource Usage view, the work total is not updated correctly. • If you change the size of some lookup table rows, the data of any existing customized field is corrupted. • You have a blank row between tasks. When you copy and paste the tasks, the blank row is removed. Therefore, Project automatically re-creates predecessor links. However, the links are incorrect. • Enterprise outline codes are not displayed correctly when the default currency is Turkish. • Project 2007 may close unexpectedly (crash) when you open a project that has AutoFilter enabled. • The Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) property Assignments.UniqueID does not work in Project 2007. • The Beforeassignmentchange event does not occur in Project 2007. • Task updates are submitted to a project manager other than the designated status manager. For Futher details and downloading the Hotfix Files, Please visit the Microsoft Support website
Wake up your Sharepoint, Project Server and WSS SitesHey Guys,
I come to know lot of people facing problem at morning time when first user access the Sharepoint / PWA / WSS sites, its take a long time to display the page.
Normally IIS discards its cache overnight, which means that each Sharepoint site must be rebuilt the first time it is accessed. This can be very slow. This script will seek out every site and site collection on a sharepoint server, and send them an HTTP request, so that the site remains in cache.
Their are two Option Available:
1) CodePlex SPWakeUp tool
You must run this application on a machine that has WSS or MOSS installed.
If you want to wake up a single site, you do not need sites.conf and it can be safely deleted. If you need to wake up mulitple sites, list them in sites.conf, each on their own line. The app recognizes 3 option switches (the switches can appear in any order): -verbose --Displays the raw HTML of each site as it is woken. -site:XXX.XXX -- specifies the starting URL. If you do not set anything, the app looks for sites.conf, and uses the sites listed there. If sites.conf does not exist, the default URL http://localhost is used. -discover -- Searches the local server for all web applications. -log:Filename -- specifies a log file to record the results. If a file is not specified, the log will be displayed on the console. Examples: spwakeup.exe If the file sites.conf does not exist, runs against http://localhost. Displays log results on console. spwakeup.exe -verbose -log:c:\log.txt -site:http://portal.mycompany.com Runs against http://portal.mycompany.com. Displays verbose results. Stores results in c:\log.txt. Avoid that COLD, SLOW request that baffles users... Ever thought things on ASP.NET were a bit slow the first time accessing them? Many of you are aware that ASP.NET from a web admin perspective know that things have to recompile and things just aren't as fast the first time. In fact some times things are incredibly slow the first time and are incredibly slow. Ever had users say, for some odd reason some times when I hit my SharePoint site it takes 30 seconds to load, then after a refresh it goes sub second, even clearing their cache the page is fast. That's because it's not a user issue, its simply compiling, caching, etc... on the server after an IISReset or app pool reset or worker process cycle. If you're doing demos of an ASP.NET app such as WSS or SPS or Office SharePoint Server 2007, or you simply want your home page to load faster after an IISReset so it's not your users hitting the page for the first time, you may be *very* interested in this post. The scripts attached to this post are warm up scripts. I did not write them. I asked the guy (Bryan Hart) who built our awesome VPCs (virtual images) if he wrote them. He did some work on them, but he doesn't claim to have originally authored them. They are shared via the SharePoint beta 2 Resource DVD (handed out at TechEd 2006 and the World Wide Partner Conference as part of the SharePoint Server VPC image. I think they're super cool so I'm attaching them for use on your environments. None of the scripts are compiled so you can feel free to modify them, make them even greater and share them back out to the world. Let's say you know that you cycle your app pools at 1am, what if you executed this script to "warm up" the common pages following the cycle? I'm sure you'll find other creative uses of this script outside of demos which is our most common usage of this script. I do recommend you compare an iisreset and hit your home page, then try an iisreset and run this script then hit the page. HUGE difference. I personally think the warmupscript is more efficient than a browser request in terms of "warming" things up. Here's the gist of the attached batch and command line executed vbscript... In the words of the script itself... "This script will run stsadm to warmup the admin interfaces [and] hit each page in the portal to force their JIT." warmupserver.zip contains the following 3 files: Startup.bat - Calls the warmupserver.cmd script and passes in the servername parameter (modify this to fit the hostname of your server) Warmupserver.cmd - checks for servername parameter then leverages the HttpRequest.vbs script to hit the relevant admin pages (change the pages and ports to the relevant ones) HTTPRequest.vbs - This script executes an HTTP query using the XMLHTTP object
Added 8/21: I recommend checking out some additional tips on this topic from Andrew Connell I'd say these tips are beyond just for developers. It's very efficient to cycle just an app pool, or isolate a worker process and kill the process rather than cycling IIS. I also recommend having the path to the /bin directory in your path variables. (More insight in andrew's post. One of the first things I do when installing a sharepoint server is creating a command short cut to the bin directory, even though I like to have it in my path. 1. Right click desktop, choose "shortcut" 2. Put in this path: "c:\winnt\system32\cmd.exe" click next 3. Enter "STSADM" or shortcut to bin or something like that and click "next" (Now you've got a command prompt looking icon on your desktop) 4. Choose the new icon on the desktop. Right click choose properties, change "start in" path to the path to the bin directory: "c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\bin" (path may be slightly different based for x64) Double click the shortcut... You now are at the path where you can run stsadm commands, prescans, etc...
Clear the SharePoint Configuration Cache for Timer Job and PSCONFIG errorsIf you experience issues with WSS and MOSS timer jobs failing to complete are receiving errors trying to run psconfig, clearing the configuration cache on the farm is a possible method for resolving the issue. The config cache is where we store information about timer jobs status as well as other info. Sometime this data can become corrupted and need to be cleared and rebuilt from our store. To clear the config cache on the farm, follow these steps:
*Note: Only Deleted the Files inside the GUID folder (.XML) and dont delete the Cache.ini file. Be avoid to delete the whole GUID folder.
Another Similar Way to do this. Sometimes you see some weird errors occurring when you change settings in SharePoint Server 2007 - such as when you try to modify an alternate access mapping (see KB939308 ). I also noticed some issues when changing settings concerning search. A work around seems to be clearing the SharePoint configuration cache:
*Note: Only Deleted the Files inside the GUID folder (.XML) and dont delete the Cache.ini file. Be avoid to delete the whole GUID folder.
Note The file system cache is re-created after you perform this procedure. Make sure that you perform this procedure on all servers in the server farm on which the Timer service is running.
Thanks Waqas Share More Community Tips on Office Online
Office Online has a new commenting feature that I mentioned in an earlier post about Community Tips. When you have questions or advice about the content you find, you can sign in with a Windows Live ID and post questions or bits of advice for the rest of the community. It’s similar to comments on a blog, except that Community Tips comments are not actively monitored by the authors. That said, it’s a way to have a conversation that’s focused on content such as articles and templates.
Why mention it again? My earlier post mentioned how you could only comment in select areas of the site. Now you can comment on all types of content from Help articles to training and templates. However, the feature is not on some pages, such as home pages or search results pages. You have to be deeper down, for example, on an actual article page like the Roadmap for using SharePoint Server 2007. If you need a visual, here’s a quick video of how to submit a tip for a template on Office Online:
Go ahead and try it out. Orginaly this blog from Matt Evans Published Thursday, September 11, 2008 9:39 PM Thanks Waqas Fantastic TOOL: SharePoint SpyThis Utility from EchoTechnology is awsom, Called Sharepoint Spy tool.This powerful free tool will allow you to spy into the internal data of SharePoint and compare the effects of making a change. Sharepoint Spy also allows you to compare settings between sites, lists, views, etc helping you troubleshoot configurations
For more information and freely download this tool from http://www.echotechnology.com/products/spy
Enabling ActiveX Controls on the Client in Secure Environments in Project Server 2007
Thanks to http://www.projectservertips.com/ for this issue. Thanks & regards Waqas Announcing the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) SpecificationMicrosoft SharePoint Team BlogToday represents the start of a new era in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) interoperability as Microsoft, EMC and IBM announced a jointly developed specification that leverages SOAP, REST and Atom to enable communication with and between ECM systems. The new specification known as Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) defines a platform and language independent means of accessing ECM repositories and will be submitted to OASIS for advancement through its rigorous standards development process.
As well as enabling communication between ECM systems, CMIS will also enable rich, content centric applications and mashups to be developed independent of the underlying storage repository. For more details, you can download a draft of the specification or take a look at Ethan's post on the ECM team blog. Ryan Duguid Thanks Waqas
Announcing the Infrastructure Update for Office Project Server & Sharepoint ServerMicrosoft announced the latest Infra Structure update and it contains a fixes to the claimed bugs. For more details please visit MSDN Official blog for Project 2007 To download this infrastructure you can follow this link . Install Infrastructure update for Project Professional Thanks & regards Waqas Sarwar Project Server Load Balancing Using F5Ryan Korock from F5 has shared the following suggestions when discussing load balancing for Project Server:
g F5 hardware for load balancing the following are recommended by Ryan:
Last but not least F5 and HP have also published a recent study that could be of interest depending on your deployment topology: Deploying F5 Networks BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager with WebAccelerator for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Originally by chrisfie from Christophe Fiessinger’s Blog on April 22, 2008, 5:54pm |
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