share point deep diving

A SharePoint Solutions White Paper

Hands-on with SharePoint 2010: Deep Diving With the Experts

750 Old Hickory Blvd, Suite 1-110 Brentwood, TN 37027 (615) 515-0210 www.SharePointSolutions.com

November 3, 2009

ContentsIntroduction .................................................................................................................................... 3 Meet the Authors ........................................................................................................................... 3

Ricky Spears................................................................................................................................. 3 Eric Eaton .................................................................................................................................... 3 David Fisher ................................................................................................................................. 4 Jeremy Luerkens ......................................................................................................................... 4 Tony Bierman .............................................................................................................................. 4Whats New in SharePoint 2010 Lists? (Audience: All) ............................................................. 5 The New Approval Actions in SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows (Audience: All) ........... 9 The New Chart Web Part in SharePoint 2010 (Audience: All) ................................................. 19 Creating SharePoint 2010 Workflows in Visio 2010 (Audience: All) ...................................... 29 SharePoint 2010 * Windows PowerShell = Disaster Recovery (Audience: IT Admins) ...... 38 SharePoint 2010s New Granular Content Restore Capability (Audience: IT Admins) ........ 49 SharePoint 2010s New Configuration Restore Capability (Audience: IT Admins) .............. 56 Creating a Custom Ribbon Tab in SharePoint 2010 (Audience: .NET Developers) .............. 63 Create a Custom SharePoint 2010 Picker (Audience: .NET Developers) .............................. 69 Building a SharePoint 2010 Service Application (Audience: .NET Developers) ................... 772

Part One - The Service Application ........................................................................................... 79 Part Two the Service Applications Admin Interface.............................................................. 90 Part Three The WCF Service Endpoint ................................................................................. 100 Part Four The User Application Page ................................................................................... 102

IntroductionSharePoint Solutions is fortunate to have a broad array of extremely talented SharePoint experts. Over the years we have assembled a team that includes some of the most respected SharePoint Architects, Developers, Infrastructure Specialists, Trainers and Consultants in the business. This white paper is a compilation of SharePoint 2010 articles that have been written by our experts as they have dived deep into the feature-set of the new version of SharePoint. As one of Microsofts leading SharePoint partners, SharePoint Solutions has had access to early bits of SharePoint 2010 and all of these articles were written based on the Technical Preview version which was released to selected Microsoft partners in July 2009. We believe that this set of articles is unique in that SharePoint Solutions is the only company todate to document in detail, and based on extensive hands-on work, some of the important new SharePoint 2010 features prior to the release of the public beta in November 2009.

Meet the Authors

Ricky SpearsManaging Director, Training Division and Senior Instructor/Author Ricky has overall responsibility for the Training Division at SharePoint Solutions including overseeing course development and instruction. He has personally authored three advanced courses on WSS 3.0 and SharePoint 2007 and has provided expert SharePoint consulting services to clients such as Solo Cup, ConocoPhillips, Turner Broadcasting and many others.

Eric EatonSenior SharePoint Infrastructure Engineer, Instructor, Consultant Eric specializes in SharePoint Server farm infrastructure. He teaches and consults frequently on SharePoint Farm architecture and server administration topics. Prior to joining SharePoint Solutions he was a SharePoint Server Farm administrator at a large national organization.

Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved

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David FisherSharePoint Software Engineer David is a .NET developer and builds and supports commercial software products for SharePoint Solutions. He is currently responsible for the development of the Workflow Essentials line of SharePoint add-ons.

Jeremy LuerkensSoftware Production Manager and Senior Engineer Jeremy is a .NET developer and manages software production at SharePoint Solutions. He is the primary architect, designer and developer of the award-winning Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2007 product.

Tony BiermanManaging Director, Commercial Software Division Tony is a .NET developer and manages the Commercial Software Division of SharePoint Solutions. He has been a SharePoint MVP and is widely recognized as one of the industrys thought leaders on advanced SharePoint development topics.


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Whats New in SharePoint 2010 Lists? (Audience: All)By Ricky Spears In my opinion, lists and libraries are the heart and soul of SharePoint. When I first installed the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Technical Preview, the first thing I did was create a new list just to see what the most obvious changes were. Note: This article and all screenshots are from the Technical Preview and things may change before SharePoint 2010 is released to the public. I use custom lists for lots of things, so I started by creating a new custom list. The creation process wasnt very different from the process in SharePoint 2007. The List Ribbon: Very quickly I noticed that the familiar toolbar at the top of the list had been replaced by a ribbon, similar to the one in the Office 2007 applications.

The default view of the ribbon after creating a list is the List ribbon. Although Im used to using the menus, the ribbon allowed me to more quickly create views, create columns, change list permissions, go to list settings, and much more. The New Item Form and the Edit Ribbon To add a new item to the list, I switched to the Items ribbon and clicked the New Item button. Instead of switching to a new page to add my new item, a new form appeared in front of my list and it appeared the lights were dimmed on SharePoint and new form had a spotlight on it. The new item form had a ribbon itself with quick access to Cut, Copy, and Paste commands, a button to attach a file, a spell check button, as well as the expected Save and Cancel buttons.


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The Items Ribbon When I checked the box beside one of the items I added in my list, I saw options to work with that item in the Items Ribbon. From here I could view the item, edit it, delete it, and change its permissions. I could have done more if my simple custom list had more functionality.

Allow Duplicate Values? One of the things that has always frustrated me is that I havent had a good way to keep people from entering the same item multiple times in a list. In the Additional Settings section for the Single line of text, Number, Currency, Date and Time, Lookup, Person or Group, Business data, and Managed Metadata there is a setting for Allow Duplicate Values.

If you select to not allow duplicate values for a particular column, and you try to add a new item with an existing value in that column, you will receive an error and have to fix the error to proceed.


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Column Validation In the past, we didnt have any way to validate a users input in lists and libraries. When you add new columns of type Single line of text, Choice, Number, Currency, or Date and Time you will see a section called Column Validation. Here you can enter Excel type formulas that must evaluate to True before the user can add the item to the list.

If the users input doesnt validate according to your formula, the User Message you entered will be displayed to the user.

There are also validation settings on the list itself that work similar to the validation settings on the columns. Metadata Navigation In SharePoint 2010 well be able to better locate our data based on its metadata. This can be configured separately on each list and is a whole other blog post in itself. I thought you might want to see a screenshot of the settings though, so here you go!


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Form Settings In the past, if you wanted to change the way a form looked in SharePoint for entering new information or editing information, you had to create a whole new form using SharePoint Designer. Now, all those forms are InfoPath forms and selecting the option to edit the form opens it in InfoPath where you can make any changes you want, then just republish the form. Conclusion Im sure that as we all dig deeper SharePoint 2010 well find even more goodness there, but these were the first things that caught my eye and I wanted to share these with you. I think these are all significant advances over lists in SharePoint 2007.


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The New Approval Actions in SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows (Audience: All)By Ricky Spears SharePoint 2007 came with 23 out-of-the-box actions to fit many of the most common tasks needed in workflows. SharePoint 2010 comes with 44 out-of-the-box actions. All the original actions are still there, but you now have 21 more! Note: This article and all screenshots are from the Technical Preview and things may change before SharePoint 2010 is released to the public. In SharePoint 2007, if you wanted to get approval from a user for something, you usually had to use the Collect Data from a User action, store a reference to the task ID for the task that was created, and then lookup the users input later in your workflow as needed. Microsoft has streamlined this process in SharePoint Designer 2010 with the actions for Assign Item for Approval, Assign Item for Feedback, and General Task Process. In this article, well take a look at how these three actions work.

The first thing you will notice when you add any of these three actions to your workflow is that in the Editor, they all look identical. In the following screenshot I have added an Assign Item for Approval action to Step 1, and Assign Item for Feedback action to Step 2, and a General Task Process action to Step 3.


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So, how can you tell them apart? You have to click on the Approval Process link for the action. When you do this, you will see a new page where you can define and customize that overall task process.

Lets work our way around this page to explain what each section does. Task Information In the Task Information section there are only two options, you can change the name of the Approval Process and the Owner of the task.


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Both of these can be changed by clicking on the information you want to change. The Name is a meaningful name to you for this particular process. I recommend changing this to a descriptive name that will help you remember later what this particular process is for and to keep the various approval processes in your workflow distinct. The Owner is the owner of this process; youll see where this comes into play when we get to the Settings section.

When you change the Name here it also changes the name in the workflow editor.

Task Outcomes The Task Outcomes section, you can define the various outcomes for this particular process. If you selected the Assign Item for Approval action, you will already have the options of Approved and Rejected listed here.

If you want to add other options, you can click the New button to add a new option. In the example here, I have added a Skipped option.


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The items you list here will be listed as separate buttons on the task form and will be displayed in the Sequence order you select. Task Form Fields The Task Form Fields section allows you to collect other information in the task form. For example, if something is approved or rejected, you probably want the person who is doing the approving or rejecting to enter some notes about why they chose to approve or reject it.

By clicking the New button, you can add your custom data fields to the form. There is a short wizard that will walk you through the process.


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If you click the Choose existing field button, you will get a dialog box where you can choose from any of the Site Columns that are already available on your site. This can be incredibly handy since you can define the column one time and then reuse it as needed.

Settings There are only three options in the Settings section.

If you check the box for Only allow task recipients and process owners to read and edit workflow tasks then those are the only people who can do those activities. Do you remember when you could set the process owner in the Task Information box? Well, this is where that process owner is used. Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 13

There are also boxes to allow users to reassign the tasks and to change requests. Customization Ive saved this section for last because it is probably the most complex of the five configuration sections.

Clicking on the Return to Workflow link simply closes the Approval Process editing window and returns you to the workflow Editor. If you click on Change the completion conditions for this task process you will be taken to the Check Exit Conditions section where you can see the underlying conditions that are part of this activity. This is probably where you begin to see how powerful these new Approval Actions really are. Here is a screenshot of the default page without making any changes:


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You can add more conditions here if needed, add steps and generally modify the process as you need. If you click on Change the behavior of a single task you will be taken to a place where you can see and change the behaviors for On Task Assigning, On Task Pending, On Task Expired, On Task Deleted, and On Task Completed. Within each of these, you can add your own conditions, actions, and steps. Here is a screenshot of the default page:

If you click on Change the behavior of the overall task process you will be taken to a place where you can see and change the behaviors for On Approval Started, On Approval Running, On Approval Canceled, and On Approval Completed. Once again, within each of these, you can add your own conditions, actions, and steps. Here are screenshots of the various sections of the default page:


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Whew! Thats a lot of options and configurations that you can do! But were not yet finished! Remember that these were just the settings for the process. If you return to the workflow editor youll see that there are still two more options we havent looked at yet.

Item to Be Approved You probably expect that the only item on which you can perform the Approval action is the current item. However, if you click on Current Item, you can change that to any list or library item you want.


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Assigned to Users Another thing that I found frustrating in SharePoint 2007 was that I couldnt customize the task and emails that they sent. When you click on the link in SharePoint 2010 to add users, you get a dialog box where you can customize task request, including the title and body that can include lookups. You can even add serial and parallel recipients and have multiple assignment stages.

Well, there you have it. Youve gotten a general overview of the options for the new Approval Actions in SharePoint Designer 2010. If you are overwhelmed, Im not surprised. In this post, weve only just barely scratched the surface of the great things you can do with SharePoint Designer Workflows in SharePoint 2010. Youll probably need to take a class to learn it all.


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The New Chart Web Part in SharePoint 2010 (Audience: All)By Ricky Spears I may have a new favorite web part in SharePoint 2010at least its my favorite for a while. I am a bit of an Excel fanatic. I love drilling down into data to gain obscure business intelligence. I love pivot tables, and I love graphsalthough Ill admit Im much better at pivot tables than I am graphing. Its easy to get caught up in displaying your data in Excelit becomes much more like playing Excel than working with Excel. The new Chart Web Part is one of those fun web parts that you can get caught up in playing with but it also solves the common business problem of, How can I quickly display a chart of some data on my SharePoint page? Note: This article and all screenshots are from the Technical Preview and things may change before SharePoint 2010 is released to the public. Excel services is a great way to render charts in SharePoint just set up the chart in Excel and then add an Excel Services web part to display the named chart from your published spreadsheet. But with the Chart Web Part, you can not only chart information from your Excel Services spread sheets, but also from any SharePoint list. And best of all, you configure everything in your browser! Adding the Chart Web Part to a Page Youll find the Chart Web Part in the Miscellaneous category and you add to your page just like you would any other web part by selecting it and clicking the Add button.


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You will see that SharePoint 2010 adds the web part and it displays a new chart based on some random data.

Configuring the Chart Web Part With most web parts, you expect to configure them in the tool pane, although you can certainly do that by clicking on Modify Shared Web Part, you will probably want to use the wizards to configure it. You can access the list of wizards by clicking on Wizard List.


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The Chart Web Part Wizards There are two wizards: one to Customize Your Chart, and one to Connect Chart to Data. Well begin by using the Connect Chart to Data wizard and then well customize our chart later.


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The Connect Chart to Data Wizard The first step in the wizard is to choose a data source. Notice that you have the options to Get Data From Another Web Part, Connect To a Site Definition List, Connect to Business Data Catalogue, and Connect to Excel Services. This is a nice set of options. I have some Sales Data in a SharePoint list and thats what I want to chart, so Ill select the option to Connect to a Site Definition List.

In the second step of the wizard, I select the site where my data is stored and the list. Both of these are displayed in drop-down list boxes and I can select lists and libraries anywhere in my site collectionnot just the one Im currently working in, which is a very nice feature.


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In the third step of the wizard, it shows me a preview of the data that is available for charting. Here is what it shows me for my 2009 Sales list:

Here is what the SharePoint list looks like if you view the default view directly:


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In the fourth and final step of the wizard, I bind the chart to the data. Youll notice that there is an impressive set of optionsyou can configure this connection in almost any way you can imagine.

For this blog post I used 4 series that were each set up to display a unique quarter (Q1 Sales, Q2 Sales, Q3 Sales, and Q4 Sales). You cant see these all at once, so Im not adding screenshots. I didnt add any other Data Point fields, Formulas, or change the Advanced Properties. At this point, I had finished the Connect Chart to Data wizard. I could see my data displayed in the Chart Web Part.


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It was nice to see my chart rendered so quickly, but I wanted to change the way it looked, so I ran the Customize Your Chart wizard. The Customize Your Chart Wizard This is the wizard that will allow you to change the way your chart looks. Once again, you have a very impressive number of options here. The first step is to select a chart type. I counted 158 different types of charts! You have two dimensional and three dimensional charts in types of column, bar, area, line, point/bubble, financial, pie, radar, polar, Gantt/range column, range, error bar, box plot, funnel, and pyramid. I know that with this set of options, its kind of boring, but I selected the Column with Perspective as my chart type. It just seemed appropriate for this kind of sales data.


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In step two I changed the appearance of the chart. There are 12 themes you can choose from: Bright Pastel, EarthTones, LightSteelBlue, GreyScale, SemiTransparent, ExcelLike, LightBeige, Berry, Chocolate, Fire, GreenBlue, and Custom. I selected the LightBeige just because I liked it. For Drawing Style, you can select from Default, Cylinder, Emboss, LightToDark, and Wedge. I selected Cylinder. Transparency can be set from 0% - Solid to 100% - Invisible. I left it at the 20% default. For the Size and Format I could set a custom chart width, chart height, and even image format (JPG, BMP, or PNG)I left all three of these set at the defaults. One of the things I really like about the Chart Web Part is that it generates an actual image on the page and not something that is rendered by AJAX or ActiveX or SilverLight. Since its an actual image, I can easily copy and paste it into another document, or email, or even save the image if I want.


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At this point Im finished with both of the wizards and I can see my finished chart on the page

Advanced Properties The only thing I havent shown you yet is the Advanced Properties. If you click on this link, you can view a properties dialog where you can change various properties of the image itself like antialiasing, shadows, border line colors, and much more.


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So, what are you waiting for? You know you want to play some at work, so go ahead and add a Chart Web Part to your SharePoint 2010 site and start playing around. You can tell your boss I said it was OK.


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Creating SharePoint 2010 Workflows in Visio 2010 (Audience: All)By David Fisher Microsoft is taking a bit of the chore of designing workflows off of designers and letting business users define their own workflow layout in Visio 2010 before exporting to SharePoint Designer to associate it with a List or Site. This allows business users to use a familiar graphical tool to define the steps in the workflow themselves instead of having to communicate their needs to designers or developers through a requirements document. The resulting Visio workflow can be used as the actual initial building block in the workflow. Visio includes a brand new template aptly called Microsoft SharePoint Workflow that includes Condition and Activity shapes specific to SharePoint workflows.

Visio Conditions, Activities and Terminators


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Not all of the Conditions and Activities currently match up to those available in SharePoint Designer.

Note: This information is currently based on Technical Previews of both Visio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 and both are subject to change in the Beta version due out later this year. It is also important to note that Designer connects directly to the SharePoint site and retrieves a list of available conditions and activities currently installed on the site including any created in Visual Studio and any 3rd party installed solutions, whereas Visio does not; the list available in Visio is static in this preview version. The ability to connect to the target site in Visio would be a great addition and would help to allow business users to build a more complete workflow ready for installation into a SharePoint site. Creating a workflow will come naturally to users familiar with creating charts in Visio using drag and drop from the Shapes tabs and connecting them on the workspace, with the only difference being the SharePoint specific shapes. Below is an example of a simple workflow created in Visio 2010.


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Visio currently does not include any Shape Data on any of the shapes, meaning that although you can drop a "Send an Email" activity onto the workspace, you cannot specify any of the properties on the activity such as the To address, Subject or email Body. A designer will need to import the workflow into SharePoint Designer for final configuration and publishing to a list or site. I will show shortly how Visio stores attributes for the shapes when exporting the workflow. The addition of the shape data would be the final piece that would allow business users to build a complete workflow ready for publishing and I am hopeful that this will be included in the beta and/or final release of Vision 2010. After completing the workflow, it is necessary to check it for errors in logic. Visio 2010 includes the "Check Diagram" option from the Process tab of the Ribbon.

By default, the Check Diagram feature includes the "SharePoint Workflow" option as the rule base to check the workflow against. Clicking on "Check Diagram" will result in Visio checking the logic against SharePoint's rules and will either notify that no errors where found or give a list of errors in the Issues Window below the workspace. Clicking on an issue will highlight the offending object making it easier to determine the cause and fix the problem.

Example of an error in the Issues window.

After successfully checking the workflow, you now must export it to the file system so that it can be imported into SharePoint Designer. On the Process tab of the Ribbon are the Import and Export buttons. Import allows you to open workflows created in SharePoint Designer for graphic representation and documentation. Since it is possible to create a workflow in Designer that


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uses activities built in Visual Studio that Visio does not know about, those activities show up as a generic Activity with the name "Custom Action". Exporting is as easy as clicking the Export button and choosing a filename and location. Visio 2010 will save the workflow with a .vwi extension. By simply renaming this file with a .zip extension you can open it and reveal the following 4 embedded files. [Content_Types].xml This file simply stores a list of the extensions of the files embedded in the .vwi file. workflow.vdx This is the Visio definition file for the workflow including file properties and layout details for the workspace. When building a workflow in Designer, you will notice each condition or activity includes a sentence where you set properties for its parameters. This file contains the text for those sentences for use when importing the workflow into Designer. workflow.xoml Designers and developers familiar with creating workflows in SharePoint Designer will be familiar with this file. It is an XML representation of the workflow including all conditions and activities and their parameters. Although Visio does not include shape data on the workspace, when exporting the workflow, the appropriate parameters will be included in this file. When importing the workflow into Designer, it uses this file to get the logic for the workflow as well as all of the parameters and values for each condition and activity. The exported file will have the value {x:Null} set for each parameter since there is no way to set these in Visio. Here is a sample .xoml file as created when exporting the workflow shown above. The SequenceActivity section has been highlighted to show how the workflow logic including the conditions and activities is written to this file.


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workflow.xoml.rules This file defines the rules used when checking the workflow for errors. SharePoint Designer leaves behind the old look and feel of FrontPage; in 2010, it fits right in with the Office suite. In this technical preview, there are a few pieces that are not as obvious to access and even completely hidden and this is bound to get under the skin of technical designers and developers. However, my thoughts are that most of them may likely make their way into the public release due out by the time of this writing. I will only discuss those features associated with workflows in this article. To see the list of workflows for the loaded site, simply click Workflows on the left Navigation bar.


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Importing a workflow from Visio 2010 is as easy as going to Workflows on the left Navigation bar and then clicking the "Import from Visio" link in the new Ribbon at the top of the window. You are prompted to locate the .vwi file created by Visio 2010 and to name and associate the new workflow with a list on the site, or to make it a Reusable workflow. After importing the previous workflow shown in Visio, you come to the Edit screen for the workflow where you can define the values for the parameters as well as add additional conditions and activities.

The Ribbon is context specific and now contains buttons for building and publishing the workflow. The Manage section includes buttons for Checking for Errors, Publishing the workflow and exporting as a .vwi file to Visio. The Modify section includes buttons for moving activities around in the workflow as well as an "Advanced Properties" button where you can set the parameters for the selected condition or activity. This allows you to set values for the parameters directly as opposed to using the standard DesignerType. Clicking on the parameter in the sentence allows you to set the values using the DesignerType pop up window.


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Example of using the Advanced Properties button from the Ribbon to set parameter values

Example of using the DesignerType pop up window to set parameter values

The Insert section includes buttons for editing the logic of the workflow; inserting steps, conditions and actions, running sections in parallel and adding steps that use Impersonation to run as the workflow author. Lastly, the Variables section includes a Forms Parameters button to define parameters used to gather data from the user on the Initiation and Association forms when the workflow runs. It includes the Local Variables button for creating variables for use within the workflow and that can be accessed as lookups on the workflow. The Variables section also includes an Association Columns button which allows you to automatically create columns on a list when the workflow is associated with it. The purpose of this is to make sure that these columns exist if the workflow depends on them for setting or gathering data. Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 36

The next logical step is to configure the parameter values in the workflow. As stated before, Visio 2010 does not include shape data for the shapes, however it does include all of the proper parameters in the .xoml file when exporting the workflow so they show up properly when importing into Designer. This is done by either using the Advanced Properties button or clicking on each parameter and using the pop up windows as described earlier. Clicking on the Publish button validates the workflow for errors, saves the .xoml file and makes the association with the list in the content database. One of the options missing that developers in particular may miss is the fact that there is currently no way to view the .xoml in Designer as there was in 2007. You will have to Export to Visio to produce the .vwi file to get access to the xoml code. If you make any changes to it, you will need to import the .vwi back into Designer. When Publishing the workflow I have come across some errors in validation associated with the DesignerTypes in 2010. Some changes have been made in the DesignerTypes that will be the topic of another article. Workflows built in Visio 2010 should not be affected, but any existing conditions or activities built in Visual Studio will. The next logical step that does not show up in the Technical Preview of Visio 2010 is the ability to create custom conditions and activities in Visual Studio and import them into Visio as well as the addition of shape data for the shapes in Visio 2010. With this new template addition, business users should enjoy the ability to create their own workflows knowing that what they build will actually become the core of the workflow they will end up using on the SharePoint site.


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SharePoint 2010 * Windows PowerShell = Disaster Recovery2 (Audience: IT Admins)By Eric Eaton There were many options for disaster recovery with WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007. The native tools all had significant advantages, and unfortunately, disadvantages. Methods that offered the best protection against full-scale disasters offered little to no granular protection against more common accidental deletion moments. STSADM, the SharePoint command-line administration tool, offered the only native way to schedule backups by means of simple batch files but it was painfully slow and many times marked the site collection read-only as it worked. Because of these limitations, many organizations either used multiple types of backups to protect against different scenarios, or relied on third-party products to fill the gaps (or even to completely replace the native tools). With the new SharePoint 2010 functionality, these limitations no longer pose significant obstacles. With enhancements to Central Administrations backup / restore tools and the addition of Windows PowerShell cmdlets to our command-line tool belt, it is now possible to cover most issues and / or scenarios with a single disaster recovery scheme that protects your SharePoint configuration and data from both granular, accidental deletions and true large-scale disasters. Big Picture This post is specifically addressing the backup and recovery of SharePoint configuration and data not A.D. or other directory providers, your server environment, branding, and programmatic customizations such as features and solutions. The strategy for protecting those elements will vary greatly depending on your organizations overall disaster recovery strategy which may include traditional tape backup, virtual machine snapshots, server imaging, off-site replication, shared software installation points At the very least, you should have a copy of all installed solution packages stored and backed up with the rest of your installation media. Obviously, to offer any kind of protection against large or small scale disasters, backups must occur regularly and automatically. To schedule backups of SharePoint data, an administrator has two options SQL and PowerShell. SQL does not offer full configuration backup on its own but PowerShell does. In fact, SharePoint 2010 adds about 300 new cmdlets that provide a much more flexible, interactive, and granular tool for SharePoint than STSADM ever did. Several of these cmdlets provide the same backup functionality available manually through the Central Admin site, including the ability to pick and choose which farm elements to backup / restore. An Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 38

administrator can now schedule regular backups of SharePoint content and configuration completely via Windows PowerShell and Scheduled Tasks, and then perform granular restores (down to the individual list level) through the web GUI available in Central Admin if he prefers. The Nitty Gritty Lets take a look at the Central Admin Backup and Restore page to see what is possible here. Login to your SharePoint server, and go to Start > Administrative Tools > SharePoint 4.0 Central Administration.

Click on the first displayed link, Perform a backup, and youll see a tree view of all farm elements. Notice that this includes the configuration database, web application setup, content databases, service applications, user profiles Pretty cool, eh?


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This same tree-view is shown during a restore, so that on either end of the process the administrator can select all or any part(s) to work on. These component names in the first column can also be shown and referenced in the PowerShell environment by the same names. To open the SharePoint PowerShell environment: Go to Start > Administrative Tools > SharePoint 4.0 Management Console (SMC). (This may take a moment to load, dont get impatient.) Type the following to display the components hierarchically by name: Backup-spfarm -showtree.


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Why do we care? The backup-spfarm cmdlets includes a parameter that allows us to select individual items instead of the entire farm. To see some basic help text on the usage, type: backup-spfarm -?. (A complete reference of the detailed text of all SharePoint PowerShell cmdlets is being built at http://sharepointsolutions.com/sharepoint-help/groups/sharepoint-2010-powershellreference/home/).


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For this basic backup requirement, we need to create a full backup of the entire farm. Type: backup-spfarm directory \\fileserver\backupshare backupmethod full. If your datasets are too large to do a full farm-level backup every day, you may wish to do this weekly and then back up only the content nightly. To create a backup of just a content database type the following command in the SMC: Backup-spfarm directory \\fileserver\backupshare -item name as listed in tree above backupmethod full In the background, these backup commands are using different backup methods to protect different components. For instance, the content is backed up via a remote SQL database backup statement. A complete log of the backup attempt is kept in the spbackup.log file in the backup directory you specified in the command above. If there are any warnings or errors, the SMC will give a generic message that The backup job failed That doesnt mean the entire job failed, but you will have to check the log file to find out where the problems were encountered. Now that you know how to form the basic SharePoint PowerShell commands, the next step is to schedule them. This process is made up of a couple of steps. Configure PowerShell to allow scripts. In the SMC, type: set-executionpolicy RemoteSigned Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 44

Create a PowerShell script (.ps1 file extension) containing a couple of standard lines necessary to load the SharePoint cmdlets and then the command(s) we just tried above. (Below is an example based on backing up just a single content database.)

If you need to clear previous backup directories to conserve disk space, you can do this in your ps1 PowerShell script, as shown here. Here are the steps to use the Task Scheduler functionality in Windows 2008 Server to schedule your script to run on a daily basis. (If you are using Win2k3 as your OS, the steps are similar but they would be done in the older style Scheduled Tasks tool.) Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Task Scheduler, and click on the Create Basic Task link on the right side.


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Type a descriptive name, and click Next. Click the Daily button, and click Next.


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Enter your desired daily start time, and click Next.

Click the Start a program button, and click Next.


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Type powershell in the Program/script blank, and then -command "& your ps1 file path and name " in the Add arguments (optional) blank.

Click Next and Finish. If you have multiple PowerShell scripts to run (for full & differential, or farm-level & content dbs only), then you would schedule each script separately using this same method. In most organizations, I recommend starting with weekly PowerShell full farm-level backups, and nightly PowerShell backups of content databases. One advantage of scripting these backups via Powershell is the ease of multi-threading. The Backup-SPFarm cmdlets includes a threads parameter, and by putting each content db backup in its own script you can schedule them independently where each one starts with its own thread. That also allows you the flexibility to backup some content databases more frequently than others. Thats all you require to create useful, inclusive, and granular restore capability for your 2010 SharePoint farm. A big part of the reason this is so powerful though, is on the restore side of the equation. Look for a follow-up post that describes in detail how to use Central Admin and / or PowerShell to restore what you have painstakingly backed up.


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SharePoint 2010s New Granular Content Restore Capability (Audience: IT Admins)By Eric Eaton In a previous post, I documented some of the exciting new functionality that PowerShell provides for backing up a SharePoint 2010 farm. Now, lets look at the other side of the coin restoring. Restoration is usually needed in one of three basic scenarios: 1. A user has deleted or messed up some critical content. 2. An administrator has had a configuration mishap. 3. A natural / man-made disaster or hardware failure has completely taken down the farm. The way you would go about recovering from each of these scenarios would be very different. In this post, Ill address the first Content Deletion. Ill do a follow-up post to address the admin-level mishaps and recovery from a true disaster. For now, lets pretend that some well-meaning power user has been trying to clean up the Logos library in our root site to eliminate redundancy and recover some space within our quota. However, they have inadvertently deleted the logo used as our site image and in a quest to be thorough theyve deleted it from both Recycle Bins before they noticed the problem.

We can now use the Central Admin site to look for a content database backup that predates the deletion, and then restore the content at as small of a scale as possible. Go to Start > Administrative Tools > SharePoint 4.0 Central Administration, and then click the Backup and Restore link on the left.


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Click on the Restore from a backup link in the top section of the page, select the appropriate backup from the list, and click Next. (If you dont see your backup listed, try changing the Backup Directory Location entry and clicking the Refresh button.)


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Drill down through the hierarchy displayed to find the content database you need, and check the box to select it. Then click Next.

Select New configuration, and enter either a new directory name, database name, or server name. Then click the Start Restore button.

The timer service will now schedule and immediately run a job that asks the back-end SQL server to restore the old database without overwriting the live one. The time it takes will obviously vary according to the size of the database and the concurrent activity on the SQL server. The Job Status page will likely eventually show an error related to attaching the database to the Web Application. Thats not a problem we didnt want the old database to be Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 51

attached anyway. (Note: You cannot restore over an existing database. You must either specify a new name / server or delete the previous database.)

Return to the Backup and Restore page via the left-hand navigation pane, and click the Recover data from an unattached content database link in the bottom section.

Enter the Database Server and Database Name, choose to Export site or list, and then click Next.


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Select the relevant Site Collection, Site, and List, enter a Filename (and path), and versions that you need. Then click Start Export.


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The Job Status screen will hopefully show a Succeeded message, and tell you that the cmp file is ready to be imported using PowerShell.

Go to Start > Administrative Tools > SharePoint 4.0 Management Console, and type the following command: Import-SPWeb Identity http://yourportalURL Path filenameandpathtocmpfile Updateversions 3

This one felt a bit disconcerting to me at first, but we have to understand how the cmp file and the import command work. Notice the command is Import-SPWeb, not SPList. This is why it Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 54

only asks us for the web application identity instead of the web or list identity. The cmp file we exported earlier contains the path all the way to the list and whats available for importing (the contents of a single list in this example). Therefore, when the import command goes to read the cmp file, it is willing to import anything it contains but only finds the items in the Logos library. The Updateversions 3 parameter allows us to only restore items that dont exist in the live library, ignoring the items that already exist. (For a complete explanation of the Import-SPWeb cmdlet, its parameters, and its usage, see its topic in the online SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Reference forum.)


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SharePoint 2010s New Configuration Restore Capability (Audience: IT Admins)By Eric Eaton In a short series of articles Ive been documenting some exciting new disaster recovery functionality included in SharePoint 2010. (As a side note, this may be the only Google search that you could do that contains both exciting and disaster recovery in the same sentence) Restoration is usually needed in one of three basic scenarios: A user has deleted or messed up some critical content. An administrator has had a configuration mishap. A natural / man-made disaster or hardware failure has completely taken down the farm.

The way you would go about recovering from each of these scenarios would be very different. In a previous post, I addressed the first Content Deletion. Now lets talk about the admin-level mishaps and recovery from a true disaster. Admin-Level Mishaps There are many times we as admins make a change to a farms configuration that seems logical at the time, but messes up something else in unanticipated ways. Sometimes these changes are very large and / or complex and therefore difficult or impossible to put back manually. If youve been performing scheduled full farm backups via PowerShell, or even just done a manual backup beforehand in the Central Admin site, you can usually find a way to restore just the affected pieces. Lets pretend that our bosss nephew whos spending the summer as our IT intern has messed up the configuration of our search content sources. (Of course WE wouldnt have messed it up)


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Go to Start > Administrative Tools > SharePoint 4.0 Central Administration, and then click the Backup and Restore link on the left.

Click the Restore from a backup link in the top section, then pick the relevant full farm backup from the list provided and click Next.


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Scroll through the list of components to find the Search Service Application, select it, and then click Next.

Select the Same configuration button to overwrite the existing, wrong configuration and replace it with the known good configuration from the farm backup. This will cause one of those are you sure kinds of prompts. Just click OK and then click the Start Restore button.

That should do it. The job will take a few minutes to complete, but when it does, your content sources will be restored to their previous condition. This restore operation could also be done via PowerShell using the Restore-SPFarm cmdlets with the Item parameter. (See its topic in the online SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Reference forum for more information.)


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Total Farm Rebuild Whether its a natural disaster like a flood, hurricane, tornado, or earthquake or a man-made one like a building fire or hardware failure we must think ahead to the possibility of losing our entire farm. The PowerShell full farm backups youre running on a scheduled basis, and possibly the PowerShell content database backups too, can rebuild all of your configuration and content. Lets think happy thoughts, and pretend that only the SAN holding our virtual server drives died instead of picturing a wall of water through our town. What do we do now? There are many external and / or third-party solutions used to protect entire servers. Lets assume in this example that we have none of that. We are starting with a blank Windows 2008 Server image and we need to get our portal operational as soon as possible. We are assuming that we have the following at our disposal: A fully restored and functioning Active Directory The installation media for SharePoint 2010 and any third-party or custom developed solutions that we were using pre-disaster A copy of our SharePoint backup directory that has been dumped onto our new server or a file share via tape backup (IMPORTANT: Including the spbrtoc.xml. This is your backup history file, and without it you are toast. Make sure you do not delete this file accidentally when reclaiming disk space, and make sure your off-site backups include it from the root backup directory. The spbr##### folders ARE NOT ENOUGH by themselves.) Now what? Reinstall SharePoint from the installation media, and run the initial SharePoint 4.0 Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to create a farm and configuration database. The Central Admin site should open automatically and begin the web-based Farm Configuration Wizard. (If not, you can find it by going to Start > Administrative Tools > SharePoint 4.0 Central Administration, and choosing Configuration Wizards from the left-hand navigation.) (Now this feels a little counter-intuitive to me, but it is a good idea to let this wizard start up all of the relevant service applications before performing your restore. When I did not do this, I received errors as the restores tried to configure the web and service applications from scratch. If you opt not to run the wizard before the restore, you can do so after the restore completes to catch any service applications that did not restore successfully. However, you may have to restore and run the wizard multiple times to get everything to finish.)


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Choose to Walk me through and click Next.

Choose an existing managed account or enter one in the blanks provided, select all service checkboxes, and click Next. (If you are restoring a multiple-server farm, you would need to perform steps 1-3 on each server starting only the relevant service applications on each server in turn.)

When the Processing page completes, the wizard will give you the option to create a new site collection. Click the Skip button and then the Finish button.


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If you have any third-party or custom-developed solutions / features to install now would usually be the best time. Now you are prepped for the farm restore. You could do this using a process very similar to the one documented and illustrated in section 2. Admin-Level Mishaps above. The only difference would be selecting all components in the tree instead of one. For a little variety though, well do this restore using Windows PowerShell instead.

Go to Start > Administrative Tools > SharePoint 4.0 Management Console, and type the following command:


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restore-spfarm directory yourbackupdirectory restoremethod overwrite percentage 1

(For a complete explanation of the Restore-SPFarm cmdlet, its parameters, and its usage, see its topic in the online SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Reference forum.)

The SMC window will prompt you to verify the action and the overwrite, and eventually to enter credentials for your user web applications. That should restore all relevant content and configuration to your SharePoint 2010 farm. Like most disaster recovery situations your mileage may vary according to the complexity of your environment, the integrity of your backup data, and a million other wrinkles you couldnt have seen coming. If the SMC window gives you an error message, the sprestore.log file in your backup directory will give you more detailed information about the problem encountered. In my own trial runs with this functionality, I did receive an error now and then. Usually they had to do with a file or some other dependency not being available. In some cases simply running the restore-spfarm cmdlets again was successful the second time. In other cases I had to start the problem service application through the Central Admin site and its web-based Farm Configuration Wizard, and then run the restore again to inherit my previous configuration.


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Creating a Custom Ribbon Tab in SharePoint 2010 (Audience: .NET Developers)By Jeremy Luerkens Introduction As a SharePoint developer, mirroring the style of the SharePoint user interface in a custom application is important to create a homogeneous experience for your end users. One of the best opportunities to accomplish this is by creating a custom ribbon tab containing contextualized buttons to suit your application. In this article Ill show you how to define a new SharePoint Ribbon Tab which includes a button group and a collection of ribbon buttons like Laugh and Giggle. Ill discuss how to extend the CUI.Page.PageComponent JavaScript object to quickly configure ribbon button command actions. Finally Ill discuss how to make your custom ribbon tab available from a Layouts page.

Deploy a Custom Ribbon Tab Definition We begin by deploying a custom ribbon tab definition to your SharePoint environment. This is done using the element of a SharePoint feature. We begin by defining a element with the location of CommandUI.Ribbon.Tabs._children. This will add our custom ribbon tab defined in the element to the collection of available SharePoint ribbon tabs.


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Coordinate the Ribbon Tab Using a CUI.Page.PageComponent A SharePoint ribbon tab is comprised of HTML and JavaScript elements. Buttons residing on the ribbon tab are coordinated using JavaScript methods. By following the template used on many of the SharePoint pages we can easily set up the necessary JavaScript methods to orchestrate our ribbon events. The first step is to create a JavaScript object containing the appropriate JavaScript methods to coordinate the ribbon tab buttons. We start by creating a file named RibbonApp.UI.js and provide an object definition for our custom ribbon page component named RibbonApp.UI.RibbonAppPageComponent. This JavaScript object derives from CUI.Page.PageComponent and provides the necessary methods to coordinate the ribbon tab buttons. The most important methods of the RibbonAppPageComponent can be found in the prototype definition. Inspecting the methods below you will notice calls to global JavaScript functions getGlobalCommands, commandEnabled and handleCommand.


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This sample RibbonAppPageComponent provides a basic framework to support your ribbon tabs custom commands. The RibbonAppPageComponent can be reused by all of your custom ribbon tabs and it is not necessary to create a custom PageComponent for each tab. However, creating a custom PageComponent to alter or customize the behavior of a specific ribbon tab may be a good option in select circumstances. Adding the Ribbon Tab to a Page Once the ribbon tab is defined and the page component created it is time to add the ribbon to your SharePoint .ASPX page. We start by creating a private method named InitializeRibbon which gets called from the Page_Load method of our SharePoint page. We begin the method by getting a reference to the current SPRibbon element and check to ensure the current ribbon is not NULL.

Once we have a reference to the current ribbon we can begin defining the ribbon behavior. We start by setting some basic ribbon properties and adding the available tabs. The Id passed to the MakeTabAvailable method must match the value defined in our ribbon tab definition. We can


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also set up the initial ribbon tab. A common tab added to most pages is the Ribbon.Read element which provides the page title and description.

The ribbon uses the SP.js and SP.Runtime.js JavaScripts. To ensure these scripts are registered on our page we make two calls to the RegisterScriptAfterUI method. We would also like to register our RibbonAppPageComponent. The SPRibbonScriptManager contains a method to register this script and call the initialize method after the page is loaded. Unfortunately access to this method is private. To correct this deficiency we created our own RibbonScriptManager class to register and initialize the RibbonAppPageComponent.

Finally we need to wire up our ribbon buttons to perform meaningful operations. This is accomplished by creating a list of IRibbonCommands. The simplest ribbon command can be created with the ribbon command name, JavaScript action command and JavaScript enabled command. In the code below we are going to register the Laugh button which has a hardcoded enabled value of true. When the button is clicked we send an alert to the user. The enable JavaScript string could easily be turned into a JavaScript method which might inspect the page state to determine button availability. This can be seen in the JSEnableDisable button which defines the enabled script to IsJSEnabled(). The IsJSEnabled() method corresponds to a JavaScript method placed on the page to determine the button state. If a Boolean value of true is returned from the method the JSEnableDisable button will be clickable. If a Boolean value of false is returned the JSEnableDisable button will be disabled.


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The final important take away from the script below is the RegisterGetCommandsFunction, RegisterEnabledFunction and RegisterHandleCommandFunction. These are set to the JavaScript method names defined in our RibbonAppPageComponent. The contents of these methods are derived from the list of commands passed to these methods.

Your ribbon tab is now ready. Build and deploy your application to your SharePoint environment and enjoy the fruits of your labor. If you make a lot of changes to your ribbon you will notice IE caches a lot of ribbon content. It may be necessary to delete your cached files after an update or turn off caching all together. Additional Ribbon Commands The SPRibbonCommand is used to interact with page components via JavaScript. Other SPRibbonCommands can be used to provide alternate types of interactions. Other ribbon command types available are the SPRibbonPostBackCommand, , SPRibbonQueryCommand and the SPRibbonPopulateQueryCommand. .NET programmers are accustomed to creating buttons which post back to a code behind page where additional programming actions can be taken. To do this we leverage the SPRibbonPostBackCommand.


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To handle the post back event our page must implement the IPostBackEventHandler. The implementation of the RaisePostBackEvent begins by deserializing the SharePoint ribbon post back event and handling the post back ID provided by our post back command.

Conclusion The ribbon is new to SharePoint 2010 and is being embraced by Microsoft. The ribbon is making its way into many Microsoft applications like the Office Suite, WordPad, Paint and Windows 7. Consumers of Microsoft products, including SharePoint users, will come to expect a ribbon driven menu to be included in custom applications. Creating a custom ribbon tab for your SharePoint application doesnt have to be a pain and can be accomplished by defining a ribbon tab definition, creating a PageComponent to coordinate ribbon events, and initializing the ribbon in your application page. Using a custom ribbon tab is an excellent way to present custom actions in your application while maintaining a cohesive visual experience for your users. Wow your users by including a custom ribbon tab in your next SharePoint application.


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Create a Custom SharePoint 2010 Picker (Audience: .NET Developers)By Jeremy Luerkens Introduction One of SharePoints neatest features is the People Picker. It allows a SharePoint user to elegantly query, identify, and select SharePoint accounts. Did you know the People Picker is built on a set of publically available picker controls available to every SharePoint developer? Read the rest of this article to find out how to include a custom picker into your new SharePoint application. Cast of Characters Developing a custom SharePoint picker involves the creation and orchestration of three components, the Editor, Picker Dialog, and the Query. Editor The editor provides an entry point for the user to express the selected entities. It also provides a launch pad to open a popup picker dialog box and search for entities. The editor class derives from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.EntityEditorWithPicker.


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Picker Dialog The picker dialog is a popup window which appears when the SharePoint user wants to search for one or more entities. This dialog box can be opened by clicking the editors browse button. By default the picker dialog is setup to take a search expression and display the matches in the results panel. The picker dialog class derives from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.PickerDialog.

Query The Query control provides the visual results component of the picker dialog. This is the class responsible for accepting the search criteria, obtaining a list of matching entries, and creating the table of matching entries to be displayed inside the picker dialog. The query class derives from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.PickerQueryControlBase.


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Entity Model Before any of the picker components can be developed we need to identify an entity object to represent the selected data. A simple city entity can be represented with the following model.

Bringing the Picker Controls to Life Once an entity is defined the editor, picker dialog and query controls can be created. Each picker control has references to the other two controls which creates a dependency between each control. As a result, creating the three controls before defining the control body simplifies the process. We begin by creating a class named CityEditor which derives from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.EntityEditorWithPicker. Second, we create a class named CityPickerDialog which derives from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.PickerDialog. Finally, we create a class named CityQueryControl which derives from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.PickerQueryControlBase. The three city picker controls have the following properties and methods.


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Editor The editor provides an entry point for the user to express the selected entities. The main job of the Editor is to validate entities provided by the user and provide a launching pad to open a picker dialog box to search for entities. We start by setting up the picker dialog by setting the PickerDialogType property to the type of our CityPickerDialog class. This informs SharePoint to use the CityPickerDialog control when searching for new cities.

We then want to define how entities are validated by our city picker. We do this by overriding the ValidateEntity method. In this method we inspect each city provided by the user. If the city is not already resolved we look for a matching city in the AllCities property of the CityManager class. If a valid city is found we mark the city resolved. If not city is found we return the city in the current unresolved state.


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The remaining CityEditor methods are used to convert entities between a City and a PickerEntity and allow a programmer to set an initial list of selected cities. Picker Dialog The picker dialog control is the simplest picker class to create. It is used to set up the dialog window properties and the column properties used by the search results. We start by defining the results control used to display the matching cities.


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Most of work is done in the constructor where we set the results controls column display names, column names and column widths.

Using the OnLoad method we set up the title and description of the dialog window.

Query The query control is used to issue queries and return the results to the picker dialog. The CreateDataTable method is used to create a System.Data.DataTable from the columns defined by the picker dialog control. The GetEntity method is used to convert a DataRow to a PickerEntity when an item is selected. The interesting work performed by the query control occurs in the IssueQuery method. The IssueQuery method takes the search parameters and obtains the search results. The CreateDataTable method is called to build a DataTable used to pass our data from the query control to the picker dialog. Once the DataTable is filled with the results of the search the results are passed to the picker dialog using the PickerDialog.Results property. Finally the number of matching records is returned to enable paging if necessary. Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 74


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Putting the Picker to Work Once the editor, picker dialog, and query picker controls are in place we can add it to a SharePoint page in the same manner as any other control. The first order of business is to add a entry for our assembly to the web.config file and register the control namespace at the top of our .ASPX page. We can then add the editor control. City Editor (Single Entry)

City Editor (Multiple Entries)

The final step is to obtain a list of resolved entities when a page action occurs. To get a list of resolved entities simply call the ResolvedEntities property of the CityEditor instance.

Conclusion Many people see SharePoint as an extremely effective collaborative solution. As a software developer you should also notice that the folks at Microsoft have done an excellent job of making SharePoint a platform for your custom applications. By taking a bit of time to understand the SharePoint architecture you can take full advantage of the infrastructure provided. Custom pickers are an effective way to maintain consistency with the SharePoint UI while reducing the amount of work required to create a custom solution.


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Building a SharePoint 2010 Service Application (Audience: .NET Developers)By Tony Bierman Introduction With each new release of SharePoint, Microsoft has managed to further improve this platforms programmability, extensibility, and manageability. Among many other exciting new features and capabilities, the new 2010 release of SharePoint now provides developers with ASP.NET AJAX as a first-class tool in our proverbial toolbox. AJAX has been around for some time now, and it is great to finally see both native and custom SharePoint applications will be enabled with the same rich, interactive user controls weve come to expect from quality browser-based applications. Yet another exciting technology that ships with SharePoint 2010 is the Service Application Framework. The Service Application Framework allows developers to create robust and scalable shared services which can be consumed by multiple SharePoint web applications. In this article, Ill show you how to create and provision a SharePoint Service Application. Within the service application Ill define a WCF service endpoint which provides auto-completion services to ASP.NET AJAX-enabled controls. Finally Ill leverage this WCF service and the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit to provide users with a simple Geo-locator page. The Geo-locator will prompt a user for a city and state, suggesting known values in real-time as the forms fields are completed. Once a city and state have been keyed, the user will be shown the specified location on a satellite map.


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Authors Notes Admittedly, the use case set forth in this demonstration in somewhat contrived. Using SharePoints Service Application Framework to simply provide AJAX controls with autocompletion services is really beating a small nail with a big hammer. In most real-world production scenarios, such trivial functionality could probably be achieved with a simpler sitelevel web service. Ive chosen such a simple use case so as to not distract from the primary purpose of the article, which is to illustrate how to create and provision the skeleton of a simple SharePoint Service Application. The topic of SharePoint Service Applications is broad and technically advanced. Areas such as scalability, fault-tolerance, external service publishing, security, database provisioning and data backup are left for another demonstration. That being said, in this article I will get you started by showing the basics of creating, provisioning and hooking into the Central Administration management interface for SharePoint Service Applications. This demonstration is accompanied by a complete Visual Studio solution. The solution is available for download from the following location: http://code.google.com/p/autocompletedemo/downloads/list All code artifacts covered in this narrative are included in the solution. I will walk you through the process of creating the solution from scratch. As I add each artifact, I will highlight its salient points, but I will assume you also have the Visual Studio solution open to view complete code listings. There are a few utility and helper classes in the project which I dont cover in this narrative, as I believe these artifacts are self-evident. The Visual Studio solution is meant to be a starting point for you to create your own SharePoint Service Applications. I hope you will be able to take the work done here and refactor it to a launching point for your own real-world use cases. What Youll Need To follow along with this demonstration, I assume you have the following requirements installed and functioning properly. Required SharePoint 2010 WSS only will do. Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Tools

Optional WSS 2010 SDK .NET Reflector Fiddler Page | 78


I also assume that you are an intermediate to advanced SharePoint developer familiar with the SharePoint object model and the latest ASP.NET, Visual Studio and SharePoint development tools.

Part One - The Service ApplicationIn SharePoint 2010, the Service Application Framework provides you with the ability to create hosted, middle-tier services. These shared services can then provide data or processing resources to other SharePoint features. Native SharePoint applications such as search and Excel Services are built by using this platform. The platform is now available in SharePoint 2010 for third parties to also build upon. Among other things, the Service Application Framework provides: Built-in support for building applications using the Windows Communications Framework (WCF). Integration with the standard SharePoint management experience, including Administration and configuration using SharePoint Central Administration.

Anatomy of a SharePoint Service Application SPService A service provides a very narrow range of functionality that usually does not include end-to-end functions that are valuable in themselves. Services typically run invisibly and have little or no UI. Every SPService object has an Instances property that holds all the instances of the service that are running on various servers in the farm. No more than one instance of each service runs on any one server, but some services have multiple instances, each one running on a different server. Each instance is represented by an object of a class derived from SPServiceInstance. SPServiceInstance SPServiceInstance represents an instance of a service on a server in the farm. A service instance is independent from, and identical in functionality to, all other server instances of the same type. As long as one service instance of a given service remains online, the service is fully functional. Service instances may be in the started or stopped state. A service instance provides the host process for service applications. SPServiceApplication A service application is hosted by a service instance. Service applications are generally created by administrators. They provide the service interface, containing the administrator settings. Service applications may own user data. SPServiceProxy Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 79

A SPServiceProxy is simply the parent of the SPServiceApplicationProxy. It is the equivalent of a SPService on the server side, which is the parent of a SPServiceApplication. You can also think of these parent objects as class factories for the child objects, if that makes more sense to you. SPServiceApplicationProxy Service application proxies provide the public (front-end) interface to a service application. They allow client code to consume remote service applications. Service applications may not be installed locally and therefore cannot be called directly. Implementing the Service Application 1. In Visual Studio 2010 I start out by creating a new Empty SharePoint project.

2. When prompted by the SharePoint Customization Wizard, Im going to target the Central Administration web, as this is where the service application will be deployed.


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Also in the wizard, Ill select the option to Deploy as a full-trust solution.

3. Next, I add a new class to the project and name it AutoCompletionService.cs. As with all code artifacts in this demonstration, Ill cover the highlights of this class, but refer to the accompanying Visual Studio 2010 sample project for the complete listing. The AutoCompletionService class inherits the SPIisWebService class and implements the IServiceAdministration interface. Because this class is a persisted object, it must also be decorated with the System.Runtime.InteropServices.Guid attribute and assigned a unique guid.

4. For serialization purposes, the AutoCompletionService class must have a default, parameter-less constructor. This class also implements a singleton pattern to provide


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the means for acquiring an instance of the local service.

5. Ill add three more classes to the project. Im going to name the new classes AutoCompletionServiceProxy.cs, AutoCompletionServiceApplication.cs and AutoCompletionServiceApplicationProxy.cs respectively.

6. AutoCompletionServiceApplication inherits from SPIisWebServiceApplication and implements IFormattable. As a persisted object, the AutoCompletionServiceApplication class must be decorated with the System.Runtime.InteropServices.Guid attribute and assigned a unique guid. AutoCompletionServiceApplication overrides the abstract InstallPath and VirtualPath properties of its parent SPIisWebServiceApplication. AutoCompletionServiceApplication also overrides the ManageLink virtual property of


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SPServiceApplication.

7. AutoCompletionServiceApplication needs two methods to both provision and unprovision the service application and its instance. These methods will be called from the UI when an administrator creates or tears down a service application instance.

8. AutoCompletionServiceProxy inherits from SPIisWebServiceProxy and implements the IServiceProxyAdministration interface. IServiceProxyAdministration requires the GetProxyTypes, GetProxyDescription and CreateProxy methods to be implemented. Also of note, AutoCompletionServiceProxy is decorated with the Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 83

SupportedServiceApplication attribute which tightly couples it to AutoCompletionServiceApplicationProxy. Refer to the accompanying sample project for the complete class listing.

9. AutoCompletionServiceApplicationProxy inherits from SPIisWebServiceApplicationProxy. 10. Add another class titled AutoCompletionServiceInstance.cs to your Visual Studio 2010 project. AutoCompletionServiceInstance inherits from SPIisWebServiceInstance. This class overrides the DisplayName and TypeName properties. Again, refer to the


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accompanying sample project for the complete class listing.

11. In SharePoint 2010, WCF web services are stored at the path [14 Hive]\WebServices. On most systems the full path to this location is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebServices. In Visual Studio 2010, Ill create a SharePoint Mapped Folder to this location by right-clicking on the AutocompleteDemo project in Solution Explorer and selecting Add > SharePoint Mapped Folder. Note the 14 hives WebServices folder at the bottom of the list. 12. Next, Im going to expand the newly created WebServices mapped folder and right-click on the AutocompleteDemo folder below. From the context menu, I select Add > New Item. In the Add New Item dialog, I select the WCF Service template and name the new


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file YouCompleteMeService.cs.

13. Im going to move the App.config file that was added automatically to be in the same folder as YouCompleteMeService.cs. Then I rename App.config to web.config and delete its contents. Im going to create my own configuration file. In the web.config file Ill turn on aspNetCompatibilityEnabled, define a default endpoint for our WCF service, and also turn on enableWebScript for AJAX compatibility. Refer to the accompanying


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sample project for the complete web.config listing.

14. For some reason, Visual Studio 2010 doesnt automatically add a WCF Service Host declaration file to the SharePoint Project for me. At least in the VS2010 Beta, Ill have to add this file manually. To do so, I just add another file to the AutocompleteDemo folder below WebServices mapped folder in the project. I select a Text file as the file type and name it YouCompleteMeService.svc. This Service Host file will only contain a few lines declaring the service and its factory.

15. Im going to delete the YouCompleteMeService.cs, as I wont be using it. 16. Now, Ill add two more classes named AutoCompletionServiceApplicationHostFactory and AutoCompletionServiceApplicationHost to the root of the project. AutoCompletionServiceApplicationHostFactory inherits from ServiceHostFactory and


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overrides the CreateServiceHost method.

17. AutoCompletionServiceApplicationHost inherits from System.ServiceModel.ServiceHost and implements both the IFormattable and IDisposable interfaces.

18. Next, I expand the Features folder of the AutocompleteDemo Visual Studio project and right-click on Feature1. From the context menu, I click Add Event Receiver. In the newly created Feature1.EventReceiver.cs class, only the FeatureActivated method is salient to this application. In the FeatureActivated method, I check to see if an AutoCompletionService object has ever been created, and if not create it. Only one local AutoCompletionService will ever be needed. After an AutoCompletionService has Copyright 2009 SharePoint Solutions All Rights Reserved Page | 88

been created for the first time, SharePoints service application management will become aware of the new service application and allow administrators to create or manage instances of the Auto Completion Service Application from Central Administration. Ill make the admin pages to create and manage our service application in Part 2.


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Part Two the Service Applications Admin InterfaceThe Create and Manage Application Pages 1. In the project, Ill add a SharePoint Mapped Folder to the *14 Hive+\TEMPLATE\ADMIN

directory. 2. In Solution Explorer, Im going to expand the newly created ADMIN mapped folder, right-click the AutocompletionDemo subfolder, and from the context menu Add > New Item. I select a SharePoint Application Page and name it ServiceCreate.aspx. Then, I


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repeat the process to add one more page named ServiceManage.aspx.

3. The ServiceCreate page will be a popup dialog box, and as such should be modified to inherit from SharePoints ~/_layouts/dialog.master master page. This page will implement place holders for its master pages PlaceHolderDialogHeaderPageTitle , PlaceHolderDialogDescription and PlaceHolderDialogBodyMainSection content


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sections. Refer to the accompanying sample project for the complete listing.

4. Inside the PlaceHolderDialogBodyMainSection, I add the necessary controls to gather user input before creating the service application. This page will ask for the service applications name, application pool identity, and a check box to set this instance as the


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default.

5. Inside the ServiceCreate pages code-behind, within the CreateNewServiceApp method is where the new Auto Completion service application is actually created. All of the heavy lifting for creating the service application resides with a SPLongOperation. Refer


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to the accompanying sample project for the complete listing.

6. The ServiceManage page is where developers are free to add any user configurable settings for the service application. The Auto Completion service application has no user configurable options, so this page is largely left blank for the purposes of our demo. Note that this pages master page is ~/_admin/admin.master.

7. At this point, the Auto Completion service application can actually be deployed to SharePoint, and instances of the service application can be provisioned in Central Administration. Of course, the application doesnt actually do anything yet, but the core infrastructure pieces have been defined. To verify this, right-click on the AutocompleteDemo project in Solution Explorer and select Deploy. The solution will deployed, and after a few seconds, you should see a Deploy succeeded message in the


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bottom left corner of Visual Studio.

8. To verify deployment, I can open SharePoints Central Administration site and click on Manage service applications under the Application Management menu heading.

9. Selecting any item in the list of services will cause the Service Applications ribbon to appear. Ill click the New button to see the Auto Complete Service Application list


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there. Now I can go ahead and click it to create a new service application instance.


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10. If all is well, Im presented with a dialog box to create a new Auto Completion service application instance.

11. Congratulations! If everything works on this next step, most of the hard part is over. I can go ahead and complete the form by entering an instance name and selecting an application identity. When finished, I click OK to provision the service application. If the provisioning succeeded, a pair of listings for the new service application and its proxy should now be available on the Manage Service Applications Page. I havent added any user configuration options for this demonstration, but clicking the listings link to will


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visit the ServiceManage page.

12. One more step to verify the provisioning was successful is to check that the service applications virtual application was created in IIS. To do so, I can open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager from Administration Tools on the Start menu of the Windows Server running SharePoint 2010. Next, Ill expand the Sites node and then expand the SharePoint Web Services node below that. I right click on one of the virtual


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applications below SharePoint Web Services and select Switch to Content View.

13. Im looking through the list of virtual applications which have guids for names. Notice SharePoints built-in service applications such as MetadataWebService.svc and WebAnalyticsService.svc. Im looking for the virtual application with a guid for a name that that contains our Service Ho

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