Technology Tips -sharepoint 2013
Showing posts with label sharepoint 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sharepoint 2013. Show all posts

Monday, March 7, 2016

We have written a lot about share point designer before but this time we thought there should be more information for share point designer written as this is becoming very import for all designers who are working with share point technology.
Microsoft initially introduced FrontPage for editing webpages earlier then discarded that product and people might have worked with expression web for creating web pages and then Microsoft introduced SharePoint designer which was corresponding tool for SharePoint for designing SharePoint sites.
And probably Microsoft has changed direction when people have seen Microsoft is launching Microsoft edge with windows 10 would be used for designing and enhancing SharePoint sites.
Microsoft is coming up with new ideas of browsing and enhancing it with Microsoft edge with windows 10 browser – you can change and enhance your web experience through thin client which
is Microsoft edge browser where you read content and write as well.
So again web designer still thinking to work with the right tool, when it’s coming to enhance and customize existing SharePoint site so everyone ending up with ms SharePoint designer 2013 because people are working with sharepoint 2013 but how they can customize site easily.
Ultimately people are using SharePoint designer 2013 but it does not have WYSIWYG editor so web designer still finding some other ways to design sites.

MS SharePoint designer 2013 with Dreamweaver:


You can use sharepoint designer and dreamweaver  for designing master pages  or if you wanted to design a header in any html editor and take them into SharePoint designer and other component and publish them in your SharePoint site.
You have choice to design your header or social bar with any html editor, it could be Dreamweaver
Ideally you can find some slider on net and download it and open it in Dreamweaver
One of the major components of sharepoint designer 2013 is design manager with the help of design manager in SharePoint 2013 you can channelize your master page specific to mobile or desktop or ipad so once configured different master pages will be used for different channel.
Ideally you can use Dreamweaver for designing header as master page and import it using design manager so the entire header layout will be converted with design manager. These headers will be treated as master page and will be converted automatically from design manager.

This means you add social bar in Dreamweaver and update it by time to time in dreamweaver and change will be reflected in SharePoint once you have uploaded all design file into associated libraries in sharepoint then this bar up and running.
If you have multilingual site so you must be having 2 default.html 1 for English and 1 for Arabic and 2 more files associated with them as .master file each and if you have header navigation so must be having header.html and header.master. But you have to edit your html in dreamweaver for any header you have designed there and changes will be synced automatically because you have uploaded all html files from design manager and SharePoint just created .master file for all those header pages.
You can design any social bar or navigation in that header and convert them into master using design manager.
So as of now you can understand how to design navigation and where to design it obviously in dreamweaver or you can design consistent look for all pages as master page that will be used as master page later. One more thing which is very important to explain you can also design navigation in SharePoint 213 for that you don’t need SharePoint designer or Dreamweaver.
But still there is a need of slider in SharePoint for your site to be ready and launch. You can do it in sharepoint 2013 using content search webpart which is in content roll up category  add that webpart into your content query web part.

And if you want to display images as slider for that SharePoint add a content search webpart, this web part never shipped in earlier version of sharepoint now you can find it in webpart gallery just add it in your page where you want to display images as slider. And select its property change query and define image library and define path there. And in display template section select slide show and select item as large picture. When you finish adding webpart on your page then you will see a slider running on your SharePoint site page. But for social navigation or header you can use dreamweaver and design that area there.




Wednesday, February 17, 2016

sqlservermanagementstudio.net

If you have better idea about versioning in SharePoint 2013 and you might be working with aspx pages that could be used for designing contact us page, information page or product page and any kind of aspx page using SharePoint 2013. Complex situations come where you are concurrently working with different version of those pages.
It’s simple if you are familiar with layout pages you need to create a simple aspx page and select layout and that’s it, you are ready to go. Below example of aspx page is a contact page where you have created different versions and one of them is a published version and you also make changes in the existing one and that become draft version and you check in that aspx version where your content deployment job is already setup so you can only publish this draft version and then unpublished it or somehow remove that draft or manipulate all these versions.
We come across with a problem when we were working on the same page and created different versions of aspx page, below screen shot is displaying various versions of aspx page 17.0 where by mistake or you want to you want to make changes on the production version so  new content should be displayed and save it so SharePoint has created another draft version for you- or you made small change on published version so then it becomes draft version and you would probably see the screen below for your change that you made to 17.0 version and becomes 17.1 version.
So the version that has unpublished option as described in the picture below technically is the version on production server but if you look at the version so there is 17.1 version is there because you have made some changes in it and SharePoint has created another draft for you of the production version.  

So you would see one “unpublished” option in your SharePoint 2013 version history page and you would see only “view” and “restore” option for the page which is converted into draft. And you would see “view” “restore” and “delete” option for those versions that is there with draft status.
 
SharePoint 2013 aspx version managaement
SharePoint 2013 version history
So technically our published version is 17.1 because we made small change in content so then SharePoint converted and produced a 17.1 as draft but if you check the screen 17.0 is published version.

If you click on view option then you can delete this item version from that dialog box and edit content type of that page and restore it from there. As a rule of thumb – this area is for version to delete individually, unpublished and restores any version of any type – it could be document, aspx page excel sheet etc.
SharePoint 2013 document version or aspx page version with unpublished option
SharePoint 2013 document version or aspx pages version
These screens shot captured from Microsoft own product SharePoint server 2013 illustrated here for learning purpose only.

Whereas if you want to see other version of that aspx page so you would see unpublished version too and with other version like 16.0 or 15.0 you would probably see delete option to delete that version of page and view option to view that version of page and you would probably see restore to restore that version of aspx pages.
 
SharePoint 2013 aspx page version management with delete option
SharePoint 2013 aspx page version management with delete option
On the other hand you can easily manage other version of that aspx page where you can delete and restore the same version of aspx page in SharePoint 2013.
If you want to try this out so to be on safe side – you can easily delete one version and restore it from recycle bin folder where all deleted items are kept so fear not and go and delete any draft version of aspx page  and restore it from recycle bin folder- it’s that simple.
SharePoint 2013 provides the same tendency of SharePoint2013 document versions that it provides with pages, list item, and presentation version and excel sheet version.
Now we are sure you understand how easily you can manipulate complex version scenario of aspx pages in SharePoint 2013 and your issue has been resolve.
Please leave comments if you have any other issue related to that SharePoint document version, aspx page versions.





Tuesday, February 9, 2016

sqlservermanagementstudio.net

There is no doubt in that people are using SharePoint 2013 for designing website especially local intranet portal and extranet facing site. As a platform it can not only be used to design extranet portal or local intranet portal but also used to achieve other goals of organization. You can design internet facing sites as well and you can find document stored in your repository, you can manage document and records, it also provides collaboration, enterprise content management, business process management, search content and much more.
Microsoft says –it’s for Share, organize, discover, build and manage.
Where you can share content and documents in your enterprise, you can organize task and projects, and off course you can discover content in your enterprise where content can be searched very fast and result would be more relevant and organize with search engine is built in SharePoint. In designing or build part you can go beyond the limit and design any custom app with SharePoint 2013, and this time you can also manage your solution on cloud – SharePoint has different flavor means you can go and install it on cloud office 365 for example some services on cloud and manage your solution easily.
What is collaboration if SharePoint 2013 is collaboration platform?
For enterprise collaboration means - you allow your colleague to work on the same document side by side while others are working and SharePoint creates different version of that document but when you check in then your changes would be visible to others.
What is SharePoint 2013 definition simplified:
If your organization wants to design website so they can use SharePoint to design it, if enterprise wants to create intranet portals then – can go ahead with SharePoint and like if someone wants to design extranet portal then SharePoint would be right choice.
Organization wants to share content or document –can use SharePoint and collaborate on it, can do enterprise content management, document management and business process management activities with this server suite of tools.


what is sharepoint 2013
What is SharePoint 2013 understanding and Concepts with animated infographic
Above animated inforgraphic will help you to understand what is SharePoint 2013

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 is being offered as different version by Microsoft:
1) SharePoint Foundation 2013
free version with limited feature but of course you need windows server to run it.
2) SharePoint 2013 Standard server 
A server for designing business solution but again some feature would still be missing.
3) SharePoint 2013 enterprise server
Designed for large enterprise to design large business solutions.
4) SharePoint 2013 online version:
if you don’t want to create SharePoint so you can go ahead with option – SharePoint as hosted service.

You can browse this site more to find out difference among these versions.


Thursday, February 4, 2016

sqlservermanagementstudio.net

When you are working in a SharePoint world and there is team with you working on any site like developer tester and designer then – there is no chance for anyone to work directly on production server.
When you have installed SharePoint there – you will have to setup UAT server, development server, production server and probably you can install staging server in order to streamline entire life cycle of SharePoint activities, if you are working on SharePoint production server and editing site or designing some SharePoint site directly from production so you will end up with the smoke if any error occurs then your site which is hosted on SharePoint will go down. So how anyone can be safe from this disaster.
So there is concept of content deployment has been introduced in earlier version of SharePoint and now people have clear visibility about as to why they should setup all other server in SharePoint farm if really want to take advantage of content deployment job with SharePoint 2013.

There are different ways to configure content deployment job in SharePoint 2013– from CA SharePoint you can browse content deployment path option do tweak there. You can check from there how many objects has been exported and imported.  Actually you setup SharePoint 2013 content deployment job by 
specifying from where content will move – so in ideal scenario it would be from one site collection on UAT server to another site collection in production server.
If you are ok with scripts then you can write scripts for exporting object to production site collection.

SharePoint 2013 content deployment job failed:
If you have this status all the time with your job – and you don’t know the reason so you need to browse the log area of content deployment job – just click on that log file and open it.

sharepoint content deployment job concepts and best practices
SharePoint Content Deployment job best practices and concepts
Reaching SharePoint 2013 Content deployment Failed Job status:
If you want to check the status of content deployment fail job and see status and log area so follow the key sequence below mentioned as >>

Key Sequence for content deployment failed status log:
SharePoint Central Admin>> General Application Settings>> Configure Content Deployment Job>> check your job name there and click Failed >> and then browse the path mentioned for log there.








Wednesday, April 10, 2013

There is no design view in SharePoint Designer 2013 only code view is available for you to just insert your code and develop workflow.
If you look back and see what type of IDE SharePoint Designer 2010 had so it was quite easy for people to customize such stuff, user had code view, design view and split view for customization in SharePoint Designer 2010 where as design view and split view have no standing in SharePoint 2013 Microsoft has discarded design view in SPD 2013– this removal including design view and split view affecting people who are editing web parts and master pages in spd 2013.
How you can cope under such circumstances so the solution is- Microsoft says you could use visual studio for such kind of activities means for branding you need to work with VS.

Why SharePoint Designer 2013 does not have Design View:

As you know Microsoft have removed design view from SharePoint Designer 2013 but there is another solution for this problem, Microsoft says – if you want a WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get) editor for branding in SharePoint designer 2013 so you can use expression web and expression design and once done with branding then import that html files into SharePoint 2013 server  using new design manager and further you take it from there.
We have not used data driven control in expression web but you will find data source control in expression web. So people who are feeling that SPD 2013 does not have any design view for data view web part can try expression web where you will find various web parts. Though you can do many things by inserting code in a code view windows in SharePoint Designer 2013 but design view had different features as per power user point of view.


Reasons for Discarding Design view from SPD2013:


Microsoft says- SharePoint Designer 2013 does not have a design view because it’s obsolete technology and has no more support of HTML5 tag and some css tags so it’s better to discard it. So now using sharepoint designer 2013 you can edit UI and change master page but with code, you can do a lot.

Tip: you can design Visio diagram and give life to that diagram by importing it into SharePoint designer 2013 and build business rule using SharePoint Designer 2013 with that diagram.

If you find something new in expression web so please comment and let us know.

updated:
A web designer can use Dreamweaver as  SharePoint WYSIWYG tool. because you can edit your header or navigation there and SharePoint designer can generate .master file against these html versions side by side.


Alternatives to sharepoint designer


As of now there is only solution if there is no design view and still want to design no-code forms then you left with one choice which is powerapp. It's a part of office 365 or you can download it from microsoft its name is powerapp studio which is used to design custom forms using lists in sharepoint.

Power app is sophisticated service from Microsoft to create manage custom business app across different platform. Power app can be used to develop workflow form, apps using sharepoint list you can do a lot in it.

Power app is a suite of app or collection of apps, services and data platform that help you design rapid app using it.you can hook up with your underlying data be its online or on-premises it will connect you and design app for using that data.


If you are dealing with online sharepoint or on-premises then power app will help you design business app using it..

you can browse our site to learn more about power app and microsoft workflow and form and automate your business processes.

Monday, April 8, 2013


Workflows are used for designing business processes, you design workflow based on document -means document centric  or sometimes complex human approval workflow using SharePoint, how people has been using workflows in SharePoint 2010 basically there is a old school of thought exist which is workflow engine starts automatically once you install SharePoint 2010, nothing special you need to do, and SharePoint stores all data in sql server related to workflow as a rule of thumb.

SharePoint 2013 has support of previous workflow -that model exist so using SharePoint 2010 platform you can start your work and that mechanism is available in SharePoint 2013, additionally you can design workflow based on new model this mechanism has a new concept called workflow manager - you need to install it separately this mechanism is not available when you install SharePoint 2013.

So basically there are two different procedure to design workflow, one- you can design workflow based on your previous mechanism as you have been designing using SharePoint 2010 we call it old procedure.

Understanding Workflow Manager:
 And second mechanism is new service you need to install it and you will see option showing you a platform to choose when you create a new workflow in SharePoint 2013 either based on SharePoint 2010 or newly introduced mechanism SharePoint 2013.
Windows workflow manager is new mechanism of authoring and hosting workflow in SharePoint 2013 newly introduced component you need to install it separately.
  • You can manage your activities using this mew concept.
  • You can do tracking and monitoring for workflow
  •  You can do workflow instance management and much more.
Workflow Development environment for SharePoint 2013:
Workflow development using the following for SharePoint 2013 are below:

You also can use Visual Studio 2012 to design workflow based on SharePoint 2013, as you can define here custom actions for workflows ,  another option you have vision 2013 to design workflow and then import them using SPD 2013 and start designing UI.
Infopath 2013 is another option for you people to design UI and then design workflow.

You can use SharePoint designer 2013 to deign end-end workflow you can give it a try after downloading and installing it then create SharePoint site using designer and start working with workflow.
Actions are object placeholder to represent activities and display them using SharePoint designer 2013, please review a  partial list of new actions available in SharePoint designer 2013 Workflow:

  • Assign a Task
  • Start a Task Process
  • Go to This Stage
  • Call HTTP Web Service
  • Start a List Workflow
  • Start a Site Workflow
  • Build DynamicValue
Above are example of available action for your workflow to start  with and design your workflow and use them in it.