Integrating Dynamics CRM with SharePoint

[Update - This post was selected as one of the top 5 AIIM community blog posts in 2015 - http://info.aiim.org/digital-landfill/top-5-aiim-community-blog-posts-in-2015].

By integrating SharePoint with Dynamics CRM, you can leverage the document management capabilities of SharePoint from within Dynamics CRM. This allows you to store and manage documents in the context of a Dynamics CRM record on a SharePoint Server, and leverage the SharePoint infrastructure to share, manage, and collaborate efficiently. 

Integrating CRM and SharePoint

There are 2 ways of integrating SharePoint with Dynamics CRM; using List component and server-based integration. 

SharePoint version	List component support	Server-based SharePoint integration support
SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2013 SP1	Yes	No
SharePoint 2010 SP1 or SP2	Yes	No
SharePoint Online	Yes	Yes

1. Using CRM List Component (Client based integration)

As shown in the above table this is the only integration method available for on-premise SharePoint environments as they do not support server based integration. However it is possible to use this option with both CRM on-premise and CRM online. This is offered as a SharePoint solution which you need install in a SharePoint site collection,

You can download the Dynamics CRM 2013 List Component for SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013 from here. 

Here is an installation guide - Install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM List Component

2. Using Server – based integration

Server based integration can only be used with SharePoint online. It can be used to connect to either on-premise on online CRM. This method uses Dynamics CRM Server to SharePoint Server (server-to-server) authentication so there is no need to install any additional components.

Before you move to server-based SharePoint integration, review this article - Important considerations for server-based SharePoint integration  to see some of the differences you’ll experience between client-based versus server-based SharePoint integration.

Here is a detailed configuration guide - Integration Guide: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 . 

Creation of Libraries and Folders

There are 2 options to create document libraries and folders. Automatic folder creation and manual folder creation. The above guide explains the steps of automatic folder creation. It makes it very easy for the users to manage documents in the automatic folder creation option. However there is a limitation of that option since it creates all the folders within the same document library. So this option may not be practical if there are lot of documents to be uploaded which requires a distributed folder hierarchy with multiple libraries. Most importantly it would be better to go for multiple document libraries in order to enforce better security. As an example here is my preferred hierarchy for a typical sales management scenario.

• Level 1 – Document libraries based on Accounts.
• Level 2 – Under each document library multiple folders based on opportunities.
• Level 3 (optional) – Under each opportunity folder, multiple sub folders based on functions such as sales, legal, technical etc…

Now lets look at how to configure manual folder creation according to the above example.

Step 1 : Configure SharePoint Site

1. Create a new site in SharePoint. I prefer to use a dedicated site collection.

2. In CRM go to Settings –> Document Management –> Document management settings. Select the entities to which you need to enable document management. Leave the auto folder creation URL blank. Click Next and then Finish,

3. In CRM go to Settings –> Document Management –> SharePoint Sites. This is where we need to specify what the SharePoint site is. Click “New” which will open “New SharePoint site” dialog. Give a name to the site (Ideally the same SharePoint site name) and the URL of your SharePoint site. Click Save and close. Under “My active SharePoint sites” now select your site and click Activate.

Once activated click the Validate button so CRM can validate the URL of the selected site.

 

Step 2 : Connect Document Libraries with CRM Accounts

1. Now we have to specify the document libraries based on the required hierarchy. (According to the above example we need to create a document library for each account.). Create a document library in SharePoint for the selected Account and copy the URL. In CRM now go to Settings –> Document Management –> SharePoint Document Locations. Click New, which will open the “New Document Location” dialog. Give a name for the location (ideally the same document library name). Under “Parent Site or location” select your SharePoint site. (This should be automatically displayed as a result of previous step)

Now in the relative URL paste the document library URL and edit it so that it will be relative to the selected SharePoint site.

Now go to the “Regarding” text box. click the search button. This will show you the CRM accounts from which you can select the relevant account. If it is not showing the relevant account or if it is showing some other entities such as opportunities then click “Look up more records”. This will show you a search dialog from which you can select the relevant record. Once selected click save.

Now the linked document library will be displayed under “My active document locations”

2. Now go to the relevant Account in CRM. When you click “Documents” it will show the mapped SharePoint document location,

 

From here you can now directly upload documents which will be then saved in to the SharePoint document library. Also by clicking “Open SharePoint” you can open the document library in SharePoint.

Step 3 : Connect Folders with Opportunities

1. Now that we have a document library mapped to the CRM Account lets see how we can allocate sub folders for Opportunities under that Account. First create an opportunity in CRM for the selected Account.

2. Then go to Settings – > Document Management – > SharePoint document locations, Click New. Give a name to the document location

3. Click the search button under the “Parent Site or location”. Now this should display 2 options, the main SharePoint site and the document library which we earlier linked to the Account. Select the document library.

4. Under Relative URL, specify the folder name which you need to create in the document library,

5. Under “regarding” select “look up more records” Then “Look for” opportunity. Select the relevant opportunity and click Add. Click Save & Close.

Now you should see 2 records under my Active Document Locations.

6. Now open the relevant opportunity. Click Documents. Now under “SharePoint Document Associated View” it will say the folder cannot be found. It seems this is a bug and we need to save it again.

7. Click Edit location. Now as you can see all the settings are correct. But the Save button is disabled. Until we do some change this will be disabled. So just click on the display name and then space bar. This will enable the save button. Click Save and confirm.

This will create the relevant folder in the document library. Now if you click Documents option in the relevant opportunity you can see that the folder is now attached to the opportunity properly.

As you can see it is not very user friendly to manually link libraries and folders to Accounts and Opportunities. However if you want a proper hierarchy with multiple libraries this is the option available unless you go for a 3rd party or a custom solution

Irrespective of the method you use, there is a major problem in integrating Dynamics CRM with SharePoint. The two applications maintain their own authorization systems so we need to manage user permissions separately. That is we need to manually configure user permissions required for SharePoint document libraries and CRM records separately. This also need to be handled by a custom or 3rd party solution.

Sources

• Set up SharePoint integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 
• SharePoint Document Management software requirements for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Server-based SharePoint integration for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Manage SharePoint documents from within Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Integrate SharePoint with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Enable document management on entities
• Set up CRM Online to use SharePoint Online
• Important considerations for server-based SharePoint integration

Categories: Dynamics CRM, Office365, Sharepoint

Contributors can edit pages in SharePoint 2013

I think the most widely used permission level in SharePoint is the “Contribute” level which allows a user to view, add, update, and delete list items and documents. So this permission level is the ideal for normal users who will be adding and editing documents in SharePoint libraries.

However a user with contribute permissions will also get a totally unexpected privilege, which is the ability to edit pages in SharePoint. This is because the pages are stored in site pages library. In order to stop this, all you need to do is to remove the contribute permissions of the users in the site pages library.

In the site pages library;

1. stop permission inheritance
2. change the permission level of the relevant users in to “Read” instead of “Contribute.”

Categories: Office365, Sharepoint

At last - Workload-specific admin roles are here in Office365

In Office365 there are several admin roles. This article gives an overview and a comparison among different roles. However up to now one major problem we had was that there was no application / workload specific admin role. So it was not possible to assign an Exchange Admin or a SharePoint Admin.

Finally Microsoft is releasing this much awaited Workload –specific admin roles in to Office365.  Here is the introduction from MS;

“Workload-specific admin roles will provide more flexibility to organizations that want to structure admin access to Exchange Admin Center, SharePoint Admin Center, and Lync Admin Center. For example, an Exchange admin will no longer require Office 365 global admin rights to manage Exchange Online.”

This is still rolling out so may take sometime to appear in your tenant.

Source : http://office365evangelist.com/?p=2416

Categories: Office365, Sharepoint

Network Bandwidth Calculator for SharePoint Online document sync with OneDrive for Business client

One of the most useful features in SharePoint online is the ability to maintain an offline copy of your files stored in your OneDrive or document libraries. This is done by using OneDrive for business desktop client. One of the first questions that arise when trying to deploy this feature is how to calculate the bandwidth required. Now there is a calculator released by Microsoft to estimate the bandwidth that an OneDrive for Business client deployment will require.

According to Microsoft;

"this calculator can be used to provide a loose estimate. Once you download the calculator, you will see that there is an opportunity to adjust some of the settings on the Input tab such as the user profiles, working hours, and time zones for your organization. The numbers included are what Microsoft has observed in the field. You can also adjust the number of clients per site and what profile each of those users have on the Client Mix tab." 

If you want to get more understanding of how the calculations are made, there are 3 hidden sheets you need to refer to. 

Categories: Office365, Sharepoint

Hide and Unhide a library using SharePoint Designer

As we know we can allow or restrict a user to access a library by configuring permissions appropriately. Sometimes you may need to just hide a library or a list from users without removing permissions. For an example you may have a reference list which need not be directly accessed by users. For such requirements we can hide a library using SharePoint Designer as follows.

1. Open the site in SharePoint Designer
2. Open the relevant library
3. Under settings - > General Settings;
   • uncheck "Display this list on the quick launch"
   • check "hide from browser"
4. Save

 

This will hide the library in the browser. (However user still has permission so he can access with the correct URL.)

To unhide;

1. Open the site in SPD
2. Click “All Files” . This will show hidden libraries as well. (If it is a list go to “Lists” folder under All Files.)
3. Right click the relevant library and click “properties".
4. Now change the required settings and Save.

Categories: Sharepoint

SharePoint Tips & Tricks 2 - Content Rollup

In a SharePoint Intranet with multiple sites and document libraries, sometimes it is required to display a list of documents from multiple libraries based on some query, As an example you may want to display all the documents that were added to the Intranet within the last 30 days. Or you may want to display all the documents added or modified by a a particular user. There are 2 web parts that you can use to cater such "content aggregation" or "content roll up" requirements.

1. Content Query Web Part  (CQWP)

The Content Query Web Part displays a dynamic set of items based on a query that you build by using a Web browser. You use the query to specify which items are displayed, and you can set presentation options to determine how those items are displayed on the finished page.

Here are 2 articles with more details on CQWP

• Display a dynamic view of content on a page by adding the Content Query Web Part
• How to Use the Content Query Web Part to Rollup Data in SharePoint 2013

2. Content Search Web Part (CSWP)

The Content Search Web Part is very similar to Content Query Web Part. The major difference between these two web parts is that CQWP queries the content database directly whereas CSWP queries the search index. As a result CQWP will always return the latest files. (The results of CSWP may not be always up to date based on the crawl schedule). 

For more details on CSWP pl. refer to;

• Configure a Content Search Web Part in SharePoint
• Using the Content Search web part (and understanding SP2013 search)

Here is an excellent article that highlights the differences between these 2 options.

When to use the Content Query Web Part or the Content Search Web Part in SharePoint

Categories: Sharepoint

SharePoint Adoption – What are the issues?

To improve SharePoint adoption, first lets try to identify the issues faced by the users.

One of the great difficulties with regard to adopting SharePoint is that, SharePoint can be very difficult to describe to users because it encompasses so many applications, uses, and functions. (SharePoint 2010 Adoption Best Practices Whitepaper by Microsoft).

Users often have many alternative ways to achieve the same outcomes as they do with SharePoint. For an example, there are several options users can choose for sharing a new document – posting it to a SharePoint site is one possibility, but so are emailing as an attachment and saving to a file share. So unless a user finds some real value, they will go for the most convenient option.

As we discussed SharePoint comes with a lot of different features. Of course these features give greater benefits to power users. But they make it a complicated environment for an average user who will not be using majority of these features. A good example is Microsoft Office. As we know Microsoft Office comes with lot of different features. But how many of these features are being used in our day to day work?

Another issue is that most of the SharePoint projects are driven by IT so there is less buy-in from business users. According to an AIIM survey, in 49% of organizations, the current driving force is the IT Department. One of the respondents comment was

“Biggest challenge at my organization is that our SharePoint plan is an IT driven initiative. Not much buy-in from other department, because they don’t know enough about what is going on and what you can do with SharePoint.”

Another issue in SharePoint deployments is the frequent upgrades. One of the respondents comment was

“Microsoft is pushing new versions of SharePoint too quickly. We can hardly get used to one before the next version is out.”

This clearly shows that business users need more time to learn and really adopt a platform rather than what the IT expects. This will be even more challenging for SharePoint online users as Microsoft keeps on pushing new features every 3 months.

Some users may face compatibility issues when using SharePoint. Obviously SharePoint is optimized for Internet Explorer, but it provides almost similar experience with other browsers as well. But you need to have the relevant browser version based on the SharePoint version deployed. Sometimes this could be a challenge for an organization with different OS and browser versions being used. As an example SharePoint 2013 supports Internet Explorer 8 and above however SharePoint online in Office 365 supports only Internet Explorer 9 and above. This becomes even worse for organizations having multiple SharePoint farms in different versions.

Another issue that most of the today's mobile workers are facing, is the lack of a mobile app for SharePoint. Although there are many 3rd party apps, there is no SharePoint app from Microsoft.

Categories: Sharepoint

SharePoint for ECM

SharePoint is the collaboration platform of Microsoft. And it is very important to distinguish a platform from a product. SharePoint provides lot of different features and functionality in many areas so it is not a single product. According to Microsoft

“SharePoint is the place to share ideas, content and the vision of your company. It’s scalable enough to organize and manage all your information assets but it’s also designed to organize and store documents to enable personal productivity, keep teams’ in sync, and projects on track. It’s where you go to discover experts, share knowledge and uncover connections to information and people. It’s a hub for developers to build and deploy modern apps and for designers to build eye-catching websites.“

So basically you can think of SharePoint as the Swiss army knife for information management.

At a higher level we can group SharePoint features and functionality in to few main areas. And it is important to understand each of these, in order to clearly define what SharePoint is.

1. Portals – SharePoint is a portal solution capable of creation and management of web sites in forms of Intranets, Extranets or Internet Sites.
2. ECM – SharePoint provides a rich set of content management tools.
3. Search – SharePoint comes with enterprise search capabilities.
4. Enterprise Social - SharePoint can be used as an Enterprise Social networking platform.
5. BI - SharePoint in combination with tools like Excel, provides Business Intelligence capabilities .
6. BPM - SharePoint workflow platform allows us to create workflows and applications that can be integrated with other systems.

Depending on the functionality being used, SharePoint can be perceived in different ways by different users. One of the comments from a recent AIIM industry watch survey was “SharePoint is seen within our organization as a jack of all trades but master of none.”

So what does this mean? It means that SharePoint is not a ECM product. SharePoint is a platform that also provides ECM functionality among its other uses.

Categories: ECM, Sharepoint

SharePoint Tips & Tricks 1 - List and Library templates

Very frequently we use custom site and list templates to have a uniform structure throughout the site. That is when we create a doc library with custom columns, views etc... we can use that as a template to create similar libraries so that we do not have to do the required customization again and again.

For those who don't know you can create custom templates;

1. Create a document library and do the required customization. This includes doc library settings, custom views, columns etc....


2. Once the customization is completed go to document library settings and click "save document library as template" under "permissions and management"


3. Specify a file name and a template name. (Give a meaningful name to template name since it will be used later to create new libraries. I use the same name for both). To make things more clear include a brief description also.


4. Select "enable content". This will ensure that the folder hierarchy you created inside the library will be included in the template. (This increases the template site. By default there is a size limitation of 10Mb per template. If required this can be increased up to 500 Mb. This post written by Vinoj, explains how to increase the template size limit.


5. Click ok. Once it is saved it will show a hyperlink to the list template gallery where all the templates will be saved.

Categories: Sharepoint

SharePoint Newsfeed App for SharePoint 2013

SharePoint newsfeed App for SharePoint 2013 and online is now available for download from;

Windows Phone

I-OS

Categories: Sharepoint

SharePoint 2010 - Save List as Template is missing

Saving a list / library as a template is a very useful feature when we need to reuse a list / library. This gives the ability to create any number of lists / libraries based on a template. The ability to include content in the template makes this a very useful feature. As an example we use this feature to maintain all our check lists. (We use a checklist for releasing a new version of our products and this gets updated regularly. So each time when it gets updated we save the latest list as a template. Then for the next version we use this template to create a new check list.)

Recently I came across an unusual bug where the link “save list as template” is not showing under list settings. This happened for one particular list only. After some research I found this blog post by Prasath which gives a simple workaround. All you need to do is go to list / library settings page and change its URL  (change the "listedit" to "savetmpl").

Thanks Prasath. That solved my problem .

Categories: Sharepoint

Naming conventions for SharePoint

Following a naming convention is definitely an important step in any implementation. When it comes to SharePoint implementations there are several places where we can use a naming convention such as for service accounts, databases, templates etc…

I was trying few methods in SharePoint installations when I found this excellent post, SharePoint 2010 Database Naming Standards in John Powell’s Blog. I think it is a must read for any SharePoint practitioner since the standard explained there can be used by anyone to standardize SharePoint database names. 

Read the full post here : SharePoint 2010 Database Naming Standards

Categories: Sharepoint

Syncing SharePoint Online (BPOS) with SharePoint Workspace 2010 (SPW)

The ability to work offline has become an essential requirement for today’s content management solutions. Similarly we wanted this feature for SharePoint Online also. [As posted here we use Microsoft Online Services which is also called BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite). This post explains how to set SharePoint Online available for offline usage using SharePoint workspace 2010.] 
In SharePoint 2007 offline availability was provided by Microsoft Office Groove. As I mentioned in an earlier post Office Groove was renamed as SharePoint Workspace and is available with Office Professional Plus 2010. SPW (SharePoint Workspace) allows users to access documents stored in SharePoint, even when they are disconnected from SharePoint server.
Steps for syncing a SharePoint online document library with SharePoint Workspace
1. Open SPW and click on "New (page tab)" in "Launch bar". Then select "Groove Workspace”

2. Enter a name for the workspace and click options

3. Select 2007 and click create.

4. This will create and open the workspace. In that workspace right click in the content navigation area and select “Add New Tool” and then click “SharePoint Files”

5. This will add a SharePoint Files tool to the workspace. In that SharePoint Files tool click Set up.

6. This will open a dialog box where we need to select the SharePoint library or the list which we need to make available offline.

7. Now minimize SPW and open the SharePoint Online site or sub site which has the relevant library or the list. Then copy the site address from the address bar only up to the site / sub site name discarding the page address.
E.g. : full address -
https://yourdomain.com.microsoftonline.com/projects/default.aspx
Copy only the following -
https://yourdomain.com.microsoftonline.com/projects
8. Now go back to the SPW dialog box and paste the copied address in the address bar and click enter.


9. This will open the SharePoint site in the same dialog box. In that select the relevant library or the list. Then click “select”.

10. Now the workspace is synchronized with the SharePoint library. To test this create a new document in the SharePoint library. Then click the Sync button in the workspace.

11. Click “Synchronize now”. This will create an offline copy in SPW which can be accessed even when the SharePoint site is not available.

Categories: Sharepoint

Microsoft Online Services

Couple of years back I was looking for an affordable SharePoint hosted services provider mainly to set up a DEMO site. Unfortunately I couldn't implement that idea due to many reasons, mainly the cost.

Not surprisingly last year Microsoft announced the launch of Online services for few products including SharePoint. Recently I had the chance to  test this as we just started implementing this for internal use. Online services are offered as a product suite called BPOS (Business Productivity Online Standard Suite) as well as individual products including Dynamics CRM Online, Office Live Meeting, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Office Communications Online, and System Center Online Desktop Manager.
 

SharePoint Online is offered in two versions standard and dedicated. The standard version is a shared version (meaning that it is not hosted in a dedicated server). And it lacks some of the enterprise functionality such as mysites, incoming emails, forms services, excel services, content sources, business data search etc.. This review on cmswire is a good starting point for anyone interested.

There is a 30 day trial available so you can start a test run anytime. Further last week Microsoft reduced pricing for the Business Productivity Online Suite, which is now US$10 per user per month, with a five seat minimum purchase, which seems very attractive. 

Resources

• Microsoft Online Services on microsoft.com
• Microsoft Online Services TechCenter
• Microsoft Online Services Forum
• Microsoft Online Services Team Blog
• Fact sheet with pricing breakdown
• Microsoft SharePoint Online Standard Developer Guide
• Try a Microsoft Online Service FREE for 30 days

Categories: Sharepoint

Explorer view in SharePoint

A very useful feature in SharePoint is the ability to open libraries and lists in explorer view. This helps to copy / organize multiple files very easily rather than going through the multi step upload process.

If you haven't used this;

• Go to a document library
• In the main tool bar select actions -> Open with windows explorer.

Recently when I tried this with Windows 7 and IE 8, It didn't work and got the message saying "your client does not support opening this list with windows explorer". The issue was with the "webclient service", a service which is required to access internet based files. Once this service is started, the explorer view in SharePoint worked fine.

To activate;

• START - > RUN - > type services.msc.
• This will open up the services console.
• Locate the WebClient service. Right click and select properties.
• Make the start up type as automatic and start the service. 

(Source : http://www.vistaheads.com/forums/microsoft-public-internetexplorer-general/347382-explorer-view-sharepoint-not-working-ie8.html)

Update:  (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointgeneral/thread/f59c1734-1777-426b-a6b4-2681e345cc92)

"Open with Windows Explorer” of SharePoint site will only work for the 32-bit system.

The reason is that Web DAV functionality is provided natively by Web Client Service and extended by the Office installation of Microsoft Data Access Internet Publishing Provider(MSDAIPP). Since MSDAIPP is only 32-bit, it cannot be used by 64 bit Internet Explorer.

A workaround is to use  32-bit Internet Explorer in Win 7 64-bit system when the user needs “Open with Windows Explorer”.

Categories: Sharepoint

Microsoft Office 2010 Online version - Free !

   Microsoft has announced that the next version of the the popular MS Office suite, Office 2010 will have a web version free of charge. Yes, similar to Google Docs !.

 

According to PC world,

• Microsoft hosted office web apps will be free for users with Live accounts
• Customer hosted Office Web apps will be free for enterprise customers with SA (Software Assurance)

This web version will definitely have limited functionality, compared to the desktop version. But I am sure that still it will be more attractive than Google apps. The best part is that with this move SharePoint 2010 becomes even more powerful with online document creation and editing facilities. (check the screen shot here)

Let us see what the Google will do in return. 

 

(Read the source article here.)

Categories: Sharepoint

SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peek

Last week Microsoft released 3 videos allowing a sneak peek of SharePoint 2010 (Twenty Ten). You can view these here. There are 3 videos separately, Overview, for IT Pros and for developers. These are of course embedded in to a Silverlight web part so you need to have Silverlight installed to watch these. (You can download Silverlight from here)

 

Detailed information is not available yet, below is a summary of these videos together with relevant screenshots.

 

Overview

• New user interface includes the Ribbon
• site customisation made easy using web edit with live preview
• built in Silverlight web part for rich media
• branding made easy suing rich theming
• multiple browser support
• create and view diagrams with Visio services
• manage external content types easily with improved SharePoint designer
• Evolution of BDC (business data catalogues) in to BCS (business connectivity services)
• Improved offline capabilities with SharePoint workspace (formerly known as Groove; check my previous post here )
• Inline video editing with PowerPoint for videos stored in SharePoint

    

IT Pro

• Revamped and streamlined central administration
• Best Practice analyzer
• Unified logging database
• Resource throttling for large lists
• unattached content database recovery
• Visual upgrade – upgrade without changing the user interface initially

 

Developer

• Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint tools
• LINQ (Language integrated query) for SharePoint.
• Developer dashboard
• Read write access to external data with BCS
• Client Object model (OM) – code execution on client machine
• Silverlight web part

 

Looking at this sneak peek, we can expect that 2010 is going to be a really exciting year.

Categories: Sharepoint

Scan to SharePoint with Kofax Desktop

Kofax announced the launch of a new scanning application Kofax Desktop, a tool that I have been waiting for a long time. This is a simple tool that integrates in to Microsoft Office desktop applications providing users with one touch scanning capability from office applications. As I mentioned in a previous post, it also supports direct scanning in to SharePoint. Kofax desktop supports scanners using Twain drivers and can scan in either TIFF or PDF formats.

Anyone can download the fully functional trial version and work for 14 days (or 50 saves). And the best part is this costs only $ 29. .  As Kofax says I am sure this will make scanning as easy as printing.

Below are the main features;

Scan directly from Office applications

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  Scan directly to SharePoint

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   Scan as an attachment in one step

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   Scan to SharePoint and send the link on email

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   View scanned images as thumbnails for easy drag & drop

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Categories: Sharepoint

SharePoint SP2 bug

When it comes to service packs and infrastructure updates I always recommend to wait at least 3 months to install in a production environment. This will make sure that enough real time testing will be done and bugs will be discovered if any. So that Microsoft can get ready with the necessary hot fixes for the same.

SharePoint team blog reported a similar instance last week, where a bug has been discovered in the recently released SharePoint SP2. This activates the SharePoint expiration date incorrectly resulting in converting the license in to a trial installation. This will expire the installation in 180 days after the SP2 in installed, but there is no immediate effect. There is no impact on product functioning, features or data.

A hot fix is being developed and will be released soon.

Read the KB article here

Categories: Sharepoint

Sharepoint Sri Lanka

Vinoj, one of my friends currently working in Brunei has recently started a blog named Sharepoint Sri Lanka . I am sure this will definitely be useful not only for sharpeoint practitioners from Sri Lanka but for others as well.

Well done Vinoj ! Keep up the good work.

Categories: Sharepoint