Jim Mathew's Sharepoint Blog

Cannot connect to the SharePoint site: . Make sure that the Site URL is valid, that the SharePoint site is running on the local computer, and that the current user has the necessary permissions to access the site.

Jim Mathew — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:41:30 +0000

Cause:
You may experience this issue on a development machine when trying to create a SharePoint project using Visual Studio 2010.

From the File menu the developer selected New->Project and then selected ‘Empty sharepoint project’ (SharePoint 2010) and then typed in the url into the dialog box that appeared and then hit the Validate button. Upon clicking the button, the following error message was shown:

Cannot connect to the SharePoint site: http://server:123/. Make sure that the Site URL is valid, that the SharePoint site is running on the local computer, and that the current user has the necessary permissions to access the site.

Solution:

Open up SQL Manager and navigate to Security –> Logins
Select the user that you’re using to create the VS project.if the user is not there, add the user.
Under Server Roles for the user tick as sysadmin

SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflow Activities not updating or How to clear sharepoint Designer cache?

Jim Mathew — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:04:56 +0000

Cause:

You may experience this issue when you try to update sharepoint 2010 workflow using SPD.If you are building a workflow activity on WSS for SPD you may have to update your activity DLL regularly. Some times SPD does not recognize your changes in dll. so you might have to clear your workflow activity cache from system folder.

Solution:

1. Close your Sharepoint Designer.
2. Navigate to "My Computer"
3. Then go to
 - %System Drive%\Documents and Settings\%user%\ Local Settings\
 Application Data\Microsoft\WebSiteCache.
 - %System Drive%\Documents and Settings\%user%\Application Data\
 Microsoft\Web Server Extensions\Cache
4. Search for the folder  that looks similar to the name of the website.
5. Delete the assembly with the name similar to the one you are changing.
6. Start SharePoint designer.
7. This should solve your cache problem.

The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service. For more information, contact your server administrator.

Jim Mathew — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:40:53 +0000

You may receive this error when trying to publish a infopath form in SharePoint 2010

The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service. For more information, contact your server administrator.

Cause:
State service is not enabled on Server.You would need to install the ‘State Service’ via the Configuration wizard in Central Administration or via PowerShell.

Solution:
To configure the State Service by using Windows PowerShell:
1. Click Start, Administrative Tools, Windows PowerShell Modules.
2. In Windows PowerShell, type $serviceApp = New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name “State Service”
3. Create a State Service database and associate it with a service application, by typing New-SPStateServiceDatabase -Name “StateServiceDatabase” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp
4. Create a State Service Application Proxy and associate it with the service application by typing New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name “State Service” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp -DefaultProxyGroup

Visual web part deployment error : – Recycle IIS application pool”: The local sharepoint server is not available

Jim Mathew — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:21:42 +0000

When you try to deploy Visual webpart using Visual studio 2010 you will get following error on deployment :Error occured in deployment step: “Recycle IIS application pool”: The local sharepoint server is not available. Check that the server is running and connected to the sharepoint farm.

Cause:-
The account you are running Visual Studio does not have sufficient permission in SQL server database

Solution:-
Make the account you are running Visual Studio a member of the db_owner role on the sharepoint_config and sharepoint_admin databases.

Sharepoint 2010 Theme customization explained

Jim Mathew — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 15:01:03 +0000

There are two options to build themes using following tools

At first look above tools look very easy to create themes but there are lot limitations and not well defined

You can only change colors.
You can not change design elements.

Themes in SharePoint 2010 are pretty tough. There are about 60 permutations, and you can only define about 10 of those colors.

Here is a very useful article for developers which is well explained about how to build themes.
http://eschrader.com/2010/09/23/sharepoint-2010-%E2%80%93-themes-and-corev4-css-comparison-technique-for-developers/
Another article explains about basic permutations
https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/custom-themes-in-sharepoint-foundation-2010.aspx

Happy Customization!

How to create rich HTML email message in Sharepoint Designer 2010 workflow ?

Jim Mathew — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:51:35 +0000

I was very happy when i first saw sharepoint designer 2010 workflow HTML email then i become frustrated because i cannot able to add images and tables directly from editor. i thought rich HTML is not supported with this version but i found a quick way to add rich HTML in email body message.

Here is the steps:

First create your HTML in dreamweaver or any other HTML editing tool
(NOTE: Try to avoid spacing &
’s )
Then open your workflow in SPD 2010
Add “Send email” workflow action from ribbon
Keep “Send Email” action selected/highlighted
Then navigate to ribbon and select advanced properties
Select last option Body
Click on the button (3 dotted button) to open the text pad
paste your html including head,body,DTD from dreamweaver
Click OK and open the action from workflow step
Then add your lookups and test it.
Done!

SharePoint 2010 Version Build Numbers

Jim Mathew — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 06:23:33 +0000

Last updated on: June 23 ,2011

Build	Release	Component	Download Link
14.0.4763.1000	RTM	All components	Download
14.0.4762.1000	RTM	Farm Build Version

14.0.5114.5003	June 2010 CU	SharePoint Foundation 2010	KB2028568
14.0.5114.5003	June 2010 CU	Microsoft Shared Components	KB2281364
14.0.5114.5003	June 2010 CU	Microsoft SharePoint Portal	KB983497
14.0.5114.5003	June 2010 CU	Microsoft User Profiles
14.0.5114.5003	June 2010 CU	Microsoft Search Server 2010 Core
14.0.5114.5003	June 2010 CU	Microsoft Web Analytics Web Front End Components	KB2204024

14.0.5123.5000	August 2010 CU	SharePoint Foundation 2010	KB2352346
14.0.5123.5000	August 2010 CU	SharePoint Server 2010	KB2352342

14.0.5128.5000	October 2010 CU	SharePoint Foundation 2010	KB2394323
14.0.5128.5000	October 2010 CU	SharePoint Server 2010	KB2394320

14.0.5130.5002	December 2010 CU	SharePoint Foundation 2010	KB2459125
14.0.5130.5002	December 2010 CU	SharePoint Server 2010	KB2459257

14.0.5136.5002	February 2011 CU	SharePoint Foundation 2010	KB2475880
14.0.5136.5002	February 2011 CU	SharePoint Server 2010	KB2475878

14.0.5138.5000	April 2011 CU	SharePoint Foundation 2010	KB2512804
14.0.5138.5000	April 2011 CU	SharePoint Server 2010	KB2512800
14.0.5138.5000	April 2011 CU	Project Server 2010	KB2512801

Here is the reference to terminologies used

“Building The Right SharePoint Team For Your Organization” by Mark Rackley

Jim Mathew — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:20:51 +0000

Today I came across an interesting article about “Building The Right SharePoint Team For Your Organization” in geekswithblogs.net by Mark Rackley. I feel its worth reading if you are a passionate SharePoint guy.Just to know about different roles of SharePoint. SharePoint is really massive.

Read Article

SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 Coming Soon…

Jim Mathew — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:10:36 +0000

I heard a rumor that SP1 for SharePoint will release by end of June 2011.

Below will be the major highlights:-

Site recycle bin – Much awaited feature which restores site collections and sites as self service.
Enhanced Remote BLOB Storage - Remote Blob storage for shadow copy is more reliable.
Improved backup/restore functionality
Improved browser support (mainly chrome)
Storage reporting for end users (Storman.aspx is back)
New power shell cmdlet

for more information about SP1 release visit Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog

SharePoint in Plain English

Jim Mathew — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:53:14 +0000

Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/user/GetStartedSharePoint