SharePoint Config

A people directory can be useful if you want to list all the people in an organisation without users having to enter a search query. Users can then narrow down the list using filters such as Department or Job Title to narrow the results. This is really easy to set up using the default SharePoint 2013 search web parts and doesn’t require writing a single line of code. An example of what this can look like is shown below:

I’ve had a couple of requests to extend the people directory I covered in a previous article on How to: Create a Simple SharePoint 2010 People Directory. One request was to show how to display the results in a table based layout. Displaying a basic table like the one shown below is really straightforward and simply involves some modifications to the XSL property of the search results web part.

The SharePoint 2010 Health Analyzer provides a great way of identifying installation problems but it can take days or weeks before a full set of results appear. When installing a new environment it can be helpful to get instant feedback on any health issues so they can be resolved before users start using the environment. This post shows you how to run all the health analysis rules instantly using PowerShell so you get an instant health check.

The official SharePoint site contains a comparison of the features in each SharePoint 2010 edition but does not include specific details on what web parts are available for each SKU/license type. This is useful to know when choosing between Foundation vs Standard vs Enterprise, as this additional functionality may be a good reason to upgrade (or turn on these features for specific users). It is also useful to know these as a developer or solution architect so you don’t custom develop something that has already been built and tested by Microsoft – something that I often see happen.

This is the fifth in a series of posts detailing how to configure a partially SSL secured SharePoint site. This post will cover what is involved in ensuring the authentication cookie is only sent via a secure channel (i.e. SSL/HTTPS). This is best practice for securing forms based authentication but has several impacts that can require some fundamental changes to the site so are worth considering early in the development process.

This is the third in a series of posts detailing how to configure a partially SSL secured SharePoint site. In the previous post we covered how to enable SSL for the site. In this post we will cover how to force connections to use the correct protocol (HTTPS for sensitive data, HTTP otherwise). This is required so that if a user tries to browse to page that sends or displays sensitive data via HTTP (e.g. http://www.company.com/pages/login.aspx) they will be redirected to the HTTPS version of the page (e.g. https://www.company.com/pages/login.aspx – so they can login securely) and vice versa for pages like the homepage that should be delivered via HTTP so they do not incur the performance hit of encrypting and decrypting the page.

This is the second in a series of posts on securing mixed SSL sites in SharePoint. This post will cover how to configure a SharePoint forms based web application to allow SSL/HTTPS connections. The process involves setting up an SSL certificate and configuring IIS and SharePoint to allow requests over HTTPS.

The following steps assume that you have a SharePoint web application already set up using forms based authentication. If you need details on how to do this see the article on Technet titled “Forms Authentication in SharePoint Products and Technologies”. We will be using IIS 7 in this example but a similar process can be followed using IIS 6 using the SelfSSL utility.

Public facing SharePoint websites often contain a combination of content that is publicly available, and sensitive content that should only be shown to authenticated users (e.g. personal details like email, address and other account information). While SSL provides a mechanism for delivering the sensitive content over a secure connection it also has a performance overhead. This often results in a requirement to partially secure the site using SSL/HTTPS, but deliver the remainder of the site via HTTP. This is the first in a series of posts that show how you can accomplish this scenario using SharePoint.

This post describes how to use the ContentTypeBinding element to avoid an error that can occur creating publishing pages. Continue reading Error creating SharePoint publishing pages »

The “Open with Windows Explorer” action available for document libraries in SharePoint relies on a WebDav client service (i.e. WebClient) which isn’t installed by default on Windows Server 2008. To get this working you need to install the “Desktop Experience” feature. This can be done by navigating to Server Manager > Features > Add Feature > Desktop Experience (requires reboot). Continue reading Enabling “Open with Windows Explorer” in Windows Server 2008 »