M G SHAREPOINT PRACTICAL IT STRATEGIES FOR ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION / / / JANUARY 2009 IMPLEMENTATION How to Control Workflow Behavior with Custom Lists Need a way to control SharePoint Designer workflows at runtime? Here’s a simple approach with a powerful control mechanism. BY PAUL GALVIN GOVERNANCE Managing Changes in a SharePoint Document Library The good news is that you don’t have to create a change management application from scratch. BY BRIEN M. POSEY MANAGEMENT Business Data Catalog Adds Functionality Without Coding Learn how BDC can help enterprise users share business data with less need for custom development. BY SHAWN SHELL I
Transcript
M
G
SHAREPOINTPRACTICAL IT STRATEGIES FOR ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION /// JANUARY 2009
IMPLEMENTATION
How to ControlWorkflowBehavior with Custom ListsNeed a way to control SharePoint Designer workflows at runtime?Here’s a simple approach with a powerful control mechanism.BY PAUL GALVIN
GOVERNANCE
Managing Changes in aSharePoint Document LibraryThe good news is that you don’t have to create a changemanagement application from scratch. BY BRIEN M. POSEY
MANAGEMENT
Business Data Catalog AddsFunctionalityWithout CodingLearn how BDC can help enterprise users share business datawith less need for custom development. BY SHAWN SHELL
I
IT’S TIME TO get the new year on track. When you’re making your resolutions,don’t forget SharePoint. Here are ways you can tune up your expertise in 2009:
Resolve to follow SharePoint best practices. Shortcuts can be good if theysave work, but they can be bad if they lead to bad habits. In this month’s issue,SharePoint MVP Paul Galvin outlines a simple step-by-step method in “How toControl Workflow Behavior with Custom Lists.” At the end, you’ll have an audittrail. Now, don’t you feel better about yourself already?
Resolve to create an orderly process for document modifications. Asdocument libraries grow, there needs to be a process in place for requestingmodifications. Microsoft MVP Brien M. Posey walks you through the processin “Managing Changes in a SharePoint Document Library.”
Resolve to learn more about SharePoint’s Business Data Catalog. The BDC is anew feature in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that integrates businessdata from back-end server applications. Find out how to put it to good use in“Business Data Catalog Adds Functionality Without Coding” by SharePointexpert Shawn Shell.
What SharePoint topics are on your radar? Let us know. We resolve to coverthem in our SharePoint e-zine in 2009. �
HAVE YOU EVER wished you could tem-porarily disable a SharePoint Designerworkflow? You may want to do this inorder to mass-approve a large num-ber of documents without setting offdozens—or possibly hundreds—ofunnecessary workflows.One way to accomplish this is to
access the workflow using Share-Point Designer and disable it. To dothat, you’ll need to open up Share-Point Designer, access the workflow,change its properties and re-save it.The problem with that method
is that it’s a little messy and likelyto ring lots of alarm bells at mostcompanies. In general, fiddling aboutwith SharePoint Designer workflowsis not a good practice in a productionenvironment, nor is it part of a well-controlled process.Want a better solution that allows
you to enable or disable a workflowsolution using a custom list?Wonder-ing how to enhance it to make it more
robust and useful?It’s possible—just access data from
a custom list and use it in your work-flow. Start by creating a custom listto hold the control information.For our purposes, the control in-
formation is a simple Yes/No value
indicating whether the workflow isenabled or not. At runtime, the work-flow queries this custom list to deter-mine whether it should operate ornot. If the answer is “No,” the work-flow gracefully aborts.
How to ControlWorkflowBehavior with Custom ListsNeed a way to control SharePoint Designer workflows at runtime?Here’s a simple approach with a powerful control mechanism.BY PAUL GALVIN
Fiddling about withSharePoint Designerworkflows is not a goodpractice in a productionenvironment, nor is itpart of a well-controlledprocess.
HOW TO CREATEAN ENVIRONMENTTo follow along with this process, cre-ate a document library and a customlist as shown in FIGURE 1.Add a new column named “Work-
flow Is Enabled” to the custom list“Workflow Control,” whose type is
“Yes/No (checkbox).”Using SharePoint Designer, open
up the site (see FIGURE 2) and createa simple workflow solution on thedocument library—“ManagedDocuments Approval.”Note: This is an extremely simple
workflow process designed todemonstrate the point. This approachwill work, however, regardless of howmany steps or how complex yourreal-world workflow is.Click the Finish button, upload a
document to the library and test theworkflow. It logs a message to theworkflow history list.
IMPLEMENTING THECONTROL MECHANISMThe objective is to provide systemsadministrators with a mechanism
As organizations increasingly utilize SharePoint for mission-critical business activities, a viable content backup strategy must be properly associated with business importance to satisfy the most stringent SLA’s.
Core to DocAve 5.0 Backup and Recovery is AvePoint’s exclusive Business Criticality Matrix, which automatically classifies SharePoint content according to business importance and usage activity.
This allows you to optimize storage and system resources, and execute rule-based backups based on real-time item level data analyses. All this can be setup in a way that best meets your business needs.
To perform a granular, full-fidelity restore, simply view all backups available over a specified time interval or perform a full-text or metadata search.
To view a short 6-minute video, visit www.avepoint.com/products/docave50.
®
® ®
Changing the way Administratorsmanage SharePoint
Introducing DocAve 5.0Intelligent Backup & Recovery for Microsoft SharePoint
Business-aware and SLA-driven Protection for SharePoint 2007
that allows them to enable or disablea workflow without opening upSharePoint Designer. To accomplishthis, you have to create a list named“Workflow Control” and add an item,as in FIGURE 3.Make a note of the title, “Managed
Documents Approval.” It doesn’t real-ly matter what you give as a title, butit should be unique within that list.It should also clearly relate to the
workflow you want to control withthis setting. In this case, because Inamed the workflow itself “ManagedDocuments Approval,” I used thesame name here.Leave “Workflow Is Enabled” off
(false). That means you don’t wantthe workflow to run.In the final step, enhance the
SharePoint Designer workflow totake advantage of the control infor-
mation in this custom list.Fire up SharePoint
Designer again and pull upthe workflow. Add a newstep (FIGURE 4):
� Step Name: “AccessWF Control List and Con-tinue/Abort as Indicated”
Click on the little F(x) button to pullup a set of dialog boxes as shown inFIGURE 5.This is a common SharePoint dialog.
You use this dialog box to tell Share-Point workflow to do two things:
1Get a piece of information.
2Describe how to find thatinformation.
In this case, you’re telling Share-Point Designer to get the value of thecolumnWorkflow Is Enabled from thecustom listWorkflow Controlwherethe title equalsManaged DocumentsApproval.FIGURE 6 displays what SharePoint
Designer says when you click the OKbutton in FIGURE 5.In this case it's not a problem, but
happen if two entries were createdin theWorkflow Control List, bothwith the title “Managed DocumentsApproval”? At runtime, workflowwouldn’t know which one to pick, so itwould pick one on its own. SharePointadministrators must ensure that theyuse unique names for their work-flows. Otherwise, the results maybe unpredictable.FIGURE 7 shows what the new
workflow looks like.Note that a new step was added
and moved to the first step insequence. This is important. Other-wise, the logic would execute afterthe workflow proper and defeat thewhole purpose of this exercise.
Now the workflow can be tested.To complete the test, go back to theworkflow control list, edit the loneitem and change the value of “Work-flow Is Enabled” to Yes (check thecheckbox). Re-run the workflow,and it won’t abort this time.
EXTENDINGTHE SOLUTIONAs it stands, this solution allowsSharePoint administrators who areresponsible for a given workflowprocess to enable or disable the work-flow as needed. To make this solutioneven more useful, consider the fol-lowing enhancements:
Version control. Enable version con-trol on the list. This will provide anaudit mechanism and auditors candetermine every time the workflowis disabled or enabled by looking atthe version history of the list.
Security. Turn on item-level security.Configure security in such a way thata “super” administrator can createand update items in the control listand that lower-level administratorsare allowed to only update the list—not create or delete items. Finally, itallows everyone that would ever runthat workflow to read from the list—and that’s important. The workflowwill always attempt to read from thatlist. If a given user does not have readaccess to the item, the workflowprocess will fail for them.
Multiple workflows. This solutionallows you to control more than oneworkflow with the list. Use it for thatpurpose if it makes sense in yourorganization. Just be sure to keepthe names unique or you will run intoproblems.Workflows change over time, which
is a challenge in a SharePoint envi-ronment that leverages SharePointDesigner for workflow solutions.SharePoint Designer does not provideany kind of version control on a work-flow itself. If you go live with a work-flow on Monday and want to changeit on Tuesday, you have a problemon your hands, particularly whenMonday’s workflows are stillrunning.What happens to those workflows
when you update the system on Tues-day? It’s not pretty. So instead ofupdating the existing workflow, sim-ply create a new one with the samename but with a version tagged to itsname. Disable Monday’s workflow toprevent any new processes fromstarting. That allows any in-processMonday workflows to complete, andany new workflow processes will usethe new version.Couple this with version control on
the list level and you have a well-con-trolled environment to manage yourSharePoint Designer workflow solu-tions. The technique is a simple one,but it offers an effective way to keepworkflow in check. �
Paul Galvin is a Microsoft SharePoint MVP and a SharePoint solutions architect at EMC Corp.Galvin has worked in the IT industry for more than 15 years in areas such as software develop-ment, consulting and SharePoint solutions design, where he works with clients to create busi-ness solutions using the SharePoint platform. He contributes to the SharePoint community
through MSDN forums and his blog at http://paulgalvin.spaces.live.com.
What Happens When SharePoint Goes Down?You rely on MOSS to communicate, to actionimmediate service and to collaborate across the organization.
Without MOSS everything stops. Productivity dies,employees are isolated and information flow ends.
Keep Lines of Communication OpenThe ability to collaborate within teams across geographic dispersion is vital. There is no acceptable downtime window for SharePoint, it must be available 24x7.
Planned maintenance, storage failures, power outages and user errors are all reasons for downtime. Factor these into service continuity plans.Service continuity plans should have protection of MOSS as a high priority. Projects and information sharing may depend on it.
Keeping SharePoint AvailableNeverfail is an award winning solution to keepusers connected to MOSS. Disaster recovery, highavailability and data protection comes as standard.Out-of-the box your entire SharePoint farm is protected. Predictive monitoring ensures best practice. Replication ensures data is always protected. Automated failover keeps SharePoint available when things go wrong.
Can you afford to be without email for a day?Visit www.neverfailgroup.com/resources/whitepapers.aspx for your copy of the Neverfail for SharePoint White Paper.
Or, better still, email us at [email protected] or call 512.327.5777 to join organizationsacross the World who’ve chosen Neverfail for themost effective disaster recovery, data protectionand high availability solutions in the industry.
EXCHANGE • SQL SERVER • FILE SERVER • IIS • SHAREPOINT • BLACKBERRY • LOTUS DOMINO • RIGHTFAX
AS DOCUMENTS ARE added to documentlibraries, there needs to be an orderlyprocess in place for requesting modi-fications to those documents. EverySharePoint governance plan mustdeal with how those requests are sub-mitted, approved and implementedand for how long previous documentversions are retained.SharePoint can actually help
with the process because it providesan ideal framework for integratingchange management into a documentlibrary.Microsoft actually makes a Change
Request Management site templateavailable for download. Importing thetemplate and creating a site involvesa little bit of work, but it is still easierthan creating a site.Keep in mind that Microsoft
designed its Change Request Man-agement template for WindowsSharePoint Services 3.0, but it is com-patible with Microsoft Office Share-Point Server (MOSS) 2007. Having
said that, though, the instructionsthat Microsoft provides for installingthe template are designed for thosewho are runningWindows SharePointServices 3.0. The instructions in thisarticle have been revised for thosewho are running MOSS 2007.
INSTALLING THEAPPLICATION TEMPLATE COREBefore you can install the ChangeRequest Management template, youhave to install something called theApplication Template Core. As thename implies, this is a core templatethat contains some of the elementsthat the Change Request Manage-ment template depends on.Before you can install the template
that you just downloaded, you have tostart theWindows SharePoint ServicesAdministration Service. To do this,open the Administrative Tools menuand choose the Services option. WhenWindows opens the Service Control
Managing changes in aSharePoint Document LibraryThe good news is that you don’t have to create a changemanagement application from scratch. BY BRIEN M. POSEY
Manager, scroll through the list ofservices until you locate theWindowsSharePoint Services Administrationservice. Right-click on this service andchoose the Start command from theresulting shortcut menu. When theservice has started, you can closethe Service Control Manager.The next step in the process is to
extract the template from the file thatyou downloaded. To do so, double-click on the file you downloaded.When you do, Windows will displaythe license agreement for the tem-plate. Click Yes to accept the termsof the license, and then provide a pathto extract the Change Request Man-agement template to. Click OK, andthe template will be extracted.Now import the template. Begin the
process by making a note of the pathyou used. Next, open a CommandPromptWindow and enter the follow-ing commands, substituting <path>with the actual path where your tem-plate file resides:
k Cd\Program Files\CommonFiles\Microsoft Shared\WebServer Extensions\12\BIN
k Stsadm –o addsolution –filename<path>\ApplicationTemplate-Core.wsp
k Stsadm –o deploysolution –nameApplicationTemplateCore.wsp –AllowGacDeployment –immediate
k Stsadm –o execadmsvcjobsk Stsadm –o CopyAppBinContent
USING THE CHANGE REQUESTMANAGEMENT TEMPLATENow that you have imported thecore template, you can downloadand import the Change Request Man-agement template. That procedure issimilar to the previous one.When the download is completed,
double-click on the file that’s justbeen downloaded to begin the extrac-tion process. When you do, Windowswill display the license agreement.Click Yes to accept the terms of thelicense, and then provide a path toextract the Change Request Manage-ment template to. Click OK, and thetemplate will be extracted.After extracting the template, you
have to perform a procedure similarto that of importing the ApplicationTemplate Core. To do so, make noteof the template’s path, and then opena Command Prompt window andenter the following commands:
k Stsadm –o addsolution –filename<path>\ChangeRequest.wsp
k Stsadm –o deploysolution –namechangerequest.wsp –allowgacde-ployment -immediate
k Stsadm –o execadmsvcjobs
Now, give the server 10 or 15minutes just to make sure that it hastime to finish processing all of yourchanges and then enter the IISRESETcommand at the command prompt.This command will reset IIS and dis-
CREATING THE CHANGEREQUEST MANAGEMENT SITENow that you have imported thenecessary templates, all you haveto do is create and configure a Share-Point site that is based on those tem-plates. This is easier than it sounds.Start by opening your primary Share-
Point site and sign in as an adminis-trator. Next, choose the Create Siteoption from the Site Actions drop-down list.Internet Explorer will now display
the New SharePoint site page. Towardthe middle of this page is a TemplateSelection section. Choose the Appli-cation Templates tab, and selectthe Change Request Managementtemplate, as shown in FIGURE 1.Next, enter a title, description and
The ChangeRequest Manage-ment templatefor SharePointis located underthe ApplicationTemplates tab.
URL for the new Change RequestManagement site. Enter any addition-al attributes for the site, and thenclick the Create button.As you can see in FIGURE 2, the
Change Request template is integrat-ed into a document library. Userscan upload documents and requestchanges to those documents simulta-neously and have the option of sub-
mitting change requests for existingdocuments within the library.The Change Request Management
template probably won't be ideal forevery situation. Even so, it is impor-tant to remember that like any otherSharePoint component, it can becustomized to meet your specificneeds. �
BrienM. Posey has received Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional award five times forhis work withWindows Server, IIS, file systems/storage, and Exchange Server. He has servedas CIO for a nationwide chain of hospitals and healthcare facilities and was once a networkadministrator for Fort Knox.
FIGURE 2This is whatSharePointchange man-agement lookslike in action.
IT’S THAT SIMPLERecovering SharePoint data shouldn’t be
complicated. When you need a simple, fast
solution to recover a single document or an entire
ONE OF THE new major features inMicrosoft Office SharePoint Server(MOSS) 2007 is the Business DataCatalog, or BDC, which integratesbusiness data from back-end serverapplications within SharePointwithout the need for customcode.Microsoft included this new func-
tionality to enable organizations toboth display and index—and, there-fore, search—data contained in line-of-business applications or data-bases. In essence, the BDC exposesstructured data from outside of
SharePoint throughWeb parts andsearch results. This allows organiza-tions to share data with portal usersthrough a process that historicallyrequired custom development.To understand the basic concepts
behind the BDC, first and foremostyou need to understand that the BDCuses something called an ApplicationDefinition, which is a complex XMLfile that is loaded into SharePoint.This file contains the structure andconnection details of the data sourceand defines what data should beavailable and how it’s viewed.
Business Data Catalog AddsFunctionalityWithout CodingLearn how BDC can help enterprise users share business datawith less need for custom development. BY SHAWN SHELL
WHAT IS… Business Data Catalog?INTRODUCED AS PART of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Business DataCatalog (BDC) is a shared service that enables SharePoint administrators tobring in data from various business applications to MOSS 2007 lists, Webparts, search, user profiles and custom applications without writing code todo it. BDC provides built-in support for displaying data from databases andWeb services, and it’s the key infrastructural component around which theother Business Data features of MOSS 2007 are built. —MICROSOFT
COOL TOOLS FOR CREATINGTHE APPLICATION DEFINITIONAt the time of SharePoint’s release,Microsoft did not provide any toolsfor constructing this XML file, sousers were left to either hand-codethe file or use third-party tools whenthey became available. Today, thereare two good tool options for creatingthe Application Definition:
kMicrosoft’s own free BDCutility that shipped as a part
of the MOSS 2007 softwaredevelopment kit
k Lightning Tools Ltd.’s BDCMetaMan for SharePoint developersand administrators
Both tools have their strengthsand weaknesses, but the LightningTools utility tends to be more func-tionally rich. But, no matter whichone you choose, just be sure to getone of them. Don’t try to hand codethe Application Definition—the files
HIGH-LEVEL ARCHITECTURE OF THE BUSINESS DATA CATALOG
BDC is made up of a meta-data database and anobject model that offers aconsistent object-orientedprogramming interface forbusiness logic that lives inthe various business appli-cations. This shows the BDCinteraction between busi-ness data sources, themetadata database andbusiness data features andsolutions.
can become quite complex, and handcoding can introduce errors into theprocess.
ANATOMY OF ANAPPLICATION DEFINITIONThe Application Definition is madeup of several parts. First, it containsinformation on how to connect to thedata source. It supports several differ-ent connection types, including SQLdatabases, Oracle databases and
Web services. Generally, if there is anative .NET client available to con-nect to a data source, you can con-nect to it through the BDC.In addition to the connection
type, you also have to decide on theauthentication type. The data sourcewill largely dictate which, amongmany, authentication mechanism touse, such as usingWindows authenti-cation and the single sign-on facilitiesof SharePoint.Just keep in mind that, with the
LOW-LEVEL ARCHITECTURE OF THE BUSINESS DATA CATALOG
This shows the BDCinteraction betweenthe metadata databaseand the Runtime andAdministration objectmodels.
SOURCE: MICROSOFT
exception of single sign-on andWin-dows authentication, the BDC will beconnecting to your data source usinga service account. This means that
you should carefully consider whatyou’re exposing to your audience. Youwill have a limited ability to restrictwhat portions of the data your users
will see through the BDC, but thecontrol may not be as precise assome organizations require.After you’ve chosen your connec-
tion type and authentication mecha-nism, it’s time to add entities, whichare the “business objects” within yourdata source. They would be roughlyequivalent to tables or views in adatabase. When you use the corre-spondingWeb parts to the BDC, theyare all based on displaying a singleentity or related entities.Finally, security within the BDC—
in other words, the ability to restrictwhat users see and don’t see—isbased on entities as well. Therefore,it’s critical to ensure you have addedall of the entities you want to displayand that you’ve properly set up entityrelationships. This is essentially re-creating the database between keysand foreign keys in the tables. �
Shawn Shell is the founder of Consejo Inc., a consultancy based in Chicago that specializes inWeb-based applications, employees and partner portals, as well as enterprise content manage-ment. He has spent more than 19 years in IT, with the last 10 focused on content technologies.Shell is a co-author of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide, pub-
lished by Addison-Wesley, and the lead analyst/author on the CMSWatch SharePoint Report 2009.
You will have a limitedability to restrict whatportions of the data yourusers will see throughthe BDC, but the controlmay not be as preciseas some organizationsrequire.
q FreeWhite Paper: Can Your SharePoint Backup Harm Your Business?
qWebcast: Winning Strategies for Successful SharePoint Backupand Recovery (just click-and-view)
About AvePoint: Since 2001, AvePoint® has been a global leader in enterprise-strength infrastructure management solutions for all Microsoft SharePoint Prod-ucts and Technologies. Its flagship product, the DocAve Software Platform, waswinner of the 2008 Best of Tech Ed IT Pros Award for “Best SharePoint Product”and delivers comprehensive solutions for backup and recovery, replication, migra-tion, administration, archiving and compliance. With the industry’s only truly inte-grated solution set, DocAve is the most powerful, flexible, and innovative productin its class. Headquartered in Jersey City, NJ, with offices worldwide, AvePoint is aManaged Gold Certified Microsoft Partner and GSA Certified Provider.
20 SharePoint January 2009
» FROM OUR SPONSOR++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
q Business Continuity: Choosing the Right Technology Solution
About Neverfail: Neverfail is a leading global software company providing affordablecluster-class high availability and disaster recovery solutions for Windows-basedapplications including Exchange, SQL Server, File Server, IIS, SharePoint, RIM Black-Berry, Oracle database and IBM Lotus Domino. With failover measured in secondsrather than minutes, Neverfail’s solutions enable users to remain continuously con-nected to the live software application irrespective of hardware, software, operatingsystem, or network failures. Neverfail’s mission of eliminating application downtimedelivers the assurance of business continuity, removes the commercial and IT man-agement costs associated with system downtime and enables the more productiveuse of IT resources.
21 SharePoint January 2009
» FROM OUR SPONSOR++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
q Enhance Your SharePoint Backup and Recovery Strategy
q HowWell Do You Know Your SharePoint Environment?
q Recovery Manager for SharePoint—A Solid, Cost-Effective Recovery Solution
About Quest Software:Quest Software, Inc., a leading enterprise systems manage-ment vendor, delivers innovative products that help organizations get more perform-ance and productivity from their applications, databases, Windows infrastructureand virtual environments. Through a deep expertise in IT operations and a continuedfocus on what works best, Quest helps more than 100,000 customers worldwidemeet higher expectations for enterprise IT. Quest provides customers with clientmanagement as well as server and desktop virtualization solutions through its sub-sidiaries, ScriptLogic and Vizioncore. Quest Software can be found in offices aroundthe globe and at www.quest.com.
22 SharePoint January 2009
» FROM OUR SPONSOR++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
