Microsoft Sharepoint Services

SharePoint Services – Issues and Solutions

Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Error : “Cannot complete this action” intermittenly when we click on the item inside a subfolder in document library.

without comments

This is one of the issue that made me go crazy when dealing with it. I have a document library and a folder in it. I have many items in the document library and also some sub-folders in it. When I try to click on the folder or  open the folder and click on the item inside the sub-folder, i get an error :
“Cannot complete this action”

The problem here was that I do not get any errors in the Event Viewer. All I see is some warning messages related to .NET CLR and that probably might be because there are some registry entries or .dlls that are not functioning properly.

Getting to the point again, I installed the August Cumulative hotfix on my SharePoint Server and that resolved the issue. I see that the error message was there in one of the kb articles mentioned for the cumulative hot-fixes and thought of giving it a try. The kb articles are :

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Wssmui.msp): August 26, 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957109

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: August 26, 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956057

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956056/

Make sure that you go through the Technet Article about how to install the hot-fix on your SharePoint Servers, else it will hell lot of pain to revert back or get the issues resolved.

Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx

Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

Note:
One more issue that I see gets resolved using the cumulative hot-fix is as follow

Symptoms :
When we upgrade the site from WSS2 – WSS3 or MOSS, the default.aspx page doesnot come up.
Error: HTTP 500 Internal Error

When we try to open the page in SharePoint Designer, we get an error
“Cannot open the page”

If we go to a subsite, everything works fine. Also, all the new web apps that we create work great. 
In this sscenario, try the cumulative hot-fixes mentioned above. Your issue should be resolved.

Admin Jobs failing on one of the SharePoint Servers.

without comments

Administration jobs means the timer jobs that are executed on regular basis on the SharePoint Server. They range from Alert processing, Synchronization, etc. To get the complete timer job list for the farm, browse to Central Administration -> Operations -> Timer jobs

If you see any failed job in the timer jobs status, the first thing that you might try is running the following command on all the servers :

stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

The above command will try and execute the timer jobs that are stuck/scheduled for the specific time when you run that command. There are possibilities like the stsadm command is stuck and shows “Executing….” in the command prompt after you attempt to run the above command.

To run the above command successfully, follow the below troubleshooting steps :

  • Open Central Admin -> Operations -> Diagnostic Logging
  • Select “All” under the jobs and set the Error logging to Verbose.
  • Try to execute the execadmsvcjobs command.
  • Open the log file under “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Logs” . This is the default log directory. It might be possible that the logs directory is changed by the administrator who has set up SharePoint. We can check the logs settings from Central Administration -> Operations -> Diagnostic logging.
  • Open the file in MS Excel -> Apply filters for the columns -> Under the Levels column, select “high” and “verbose”. Under the category column, select “Timer” and “Unified Logging Service”
  • Check for any errors that you get there.
  • Based upon errors, we need to further troubleshoot the issue.
  • The possible errors that you might get are :
    • The previous instance of the timer job ‘Application Server Administration Service Timer Job’, id ‘{12403D5C-D18B-4D06-9E2F-C2855E30385C}’ for service ‘{83A518CA-9139-4A50-999B-6C35E4D42A34}’ is still running, so the current instance will be skipped.  Consider increasing the interval between jobs
    • Error during Encrypting Decrypting

If you get the above two errors, they probably are related. This issue normally occurs where you have multiple server farm configuration. The first error says that there is an admin jobs that is not getting executed. As the job is stuck, we need to remove that job from the config so that other jobs can be executed. Run the following two commands to check if it is a ssp timer jobs or a admin timer job that is listed :

stsadm -o deletessptimerjob -id “12403D5C-D18B-4D06-9E2F-C2855E30385C”

If the above command says that there is no ssp timer jobs listed with the above ID, run the following command to delete the object with that id :

stsadm -o deleteconfigurationobject -id “12403D5C-D18B-4D06-9E2F-C2855E30385C”

This will remove the timer job that was stuck. Now try and execute stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs on the other servers and you might get the second error that I have listed above. The Encryption/Decryption error states that for some reason, the password used by the timer service on that server is not valid.

Open Services.msc on the server where you are getting the error and re-enter the log on credentials for the “Windows SharePoint Services Timer”. Run the following command to update the username and password for the timer service account :

stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin “domain\username” -password “xxxxxxx” -local

NOTE: For the complete list for updating the farm credentials follow this kb :http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838/en-us

Run the stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs on the server where you were getting the errors and this time it will run succesfully. If you face any further problems, or other error messages, please leave a comment and I should get back to you soon.

How To: Creating a KPI list based on a SharePoint list.

with 8 comments

SharePoint as a business tool can be utilized for displaying data for the end users. And not just displaying the data, but displaying it in brief so that the users get to know the overall scenario without getting down to the basics. For these reasons, I have always liked SharePoint.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is financial and non-financial metrics used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals. KPIs can be delivered through Business Intelligence techniques to assess the present state of the business and to assist in prescribing a course of action.

Sample KPI list

Sample KPI list

 

Consider the following scenario:

You have a company where the performance is based on Surveys that the users provide for the product/company. The Company Director would like the survey data targets to be displayed on the home page of a report site on the SharePoint web application. Now, there are four parameters that need to be displayed on the KPI list.

  • Top Area [Overall survey points including all the parameters. The total point are 10 and if the user give a overall survey of equal to or greater than 8 points, then that would be considered under this parameter]
  • Bottom Area [This is opposite of Top Area. Now if the end user give a overall score of equal to or less than 4 points, then that would be considered under this parameter]
  • Product Quality [This is the individual rating the end user gives about the product that they are using. This is also a score out of 10 points. If the user gives a score of equal to or greater than 8 points then that would be counted positive under this category or else for any value less than 8, it would be considered as negative]
  • Engineer Knowledge [This is the individual rating the end user gives based on what they think about the support engineer/executive/customer service agent that they has a talk with. This is also a score out of 10 points. If the user gives a score of equal to or greater than 8 points then that would be counted positive under this category or else for any value less than 8, it would be considered as negative]

 

The above scenario is just an example so that we can develop out KPI list. The scenario may depend on the company requirement.

e.g. A sales company may want to display the sales that are done for different products in different areas. As per the definition of KPI, it is not necessary that we display only financial data. We can display any data where target is in picture. E.g. if a department want to meet 75% of total product sales in a specific region, we can create a KPI list that can show the current status of the sales as per the data that is present in a SharePoint list / database / external source like XML. In this tutorial, we will first continue with using another SharePoint lists as the data source for generating the KPI list.

 

So, now that we have an understanding of the scenario, let us get started with the actual work.

  • I have created a collaboration portal site which by default creates a “Reports” sub site under the top level site. We can even use a team site or a blank site template to start with. But there might be features that are required for a specific web part to function properly. For these reasons, I tend to start off with a publishing site template and then test it with other templates.
  • Browse to the “Reports” site and click on “View All Site Content” in the quick launch bar. Select the Create button in the Actions menu bar.
Create Site Content
Create Site Content
  • Create a list. I am using the Custom List, so that I can have the columns as per the report requirements.
Creating Custom List
Creating Custom List
  • Enter the description of the custom list and click on “Create” button.
Survey Data - Custom List Details
Survey Data – Custom List Details
  • Now to add the custom columns, we need to click on “Settings” button in the Actions menu bar of the list and go to “List Settings”.
Survey Data - List Settings
Survey Data – List Settings
  • Under the columns section, select “Create Column” and create the following columns in the list.
Survey Data - Columns
Survey Data – Columns

The Engineer column is a lookup column that is pulling out data from other list [which contains the engineer details. This concept in SharePoint is called re-usability, where a list can contain general data and that can be used in multiple locations. Thus the end-user does not have to always feed in the data for the individual items. The list automatically pulls out the data that is present and the user just have to select the item from the list.]

 

  • Once we have the above columns created, we will add some items in the “Surveys” list. This data will be used for getting the KPI on out site. After filling in some items, the list should look somewhat like this.
Survey Data - List Items
Survey Data – List Items
  • Now that we have the data filled in the list, we need to create a KPI list in the site. So, once again , we will browse to the “View All Site Content” of the Reports Site and select the “Create” Option. This time, select the “KPI list” under the custom list section and fill in the details to create a KPI list. Now, we have already been through the process of creating a list, so I am keeping it short this time.
  • Once the list is created, it should look like this.
Survey KPI - Blank List
Survey KPI – Blank List
  • Select, New -> Indicator using data in SharePoint list
Creating a new KPI item
Creating a new KPI item
  • Put the following settings for the KPI item

Name : Top Area
Description :
This KPI displays the performance indicator for the top area.

List Url : Select the “Survey Data” list from the list locator. The url should be
/Reports/Lists/Survey Data/AllItems.aspx

          Under the “Value Calculation” section, Keep the option – “Percentage of list items in the view where” selected as we are going to show the data in percentage format on the KPI.

          Select the “Overall” column -> is greater than or equal to -> 8 [Here, “8” is the value which defines the limit. If the Overall score of the survey is greater than “8” then the survey data will be counted under the Top Area parameter.]

 

Moving on to the next section [Status Icon], select the following settings:

          Better values are : greater
          Display <green> when has met or exceeded goal            70

          Display <yellow> when has met or exceeded warning       65

          Display <red> otherwise

 

  • Leave the other settings as default and click on “OK” button.

 

Now, this was an example for the “Top Area” KPI parameter. Similarly, I have created 3 more KPI items for the bottom area, engineer knowledge and product quality. Now all these items have their own logic as the one above. Depending on the scenario, you can create your own KPI items.

Once the KPI items are created, the KPI list should look like this.
Final Survey KPI list view
Final Survey KPI list view

Now, you have your KPI list ready and working. The only thing that might be missing is to display the list on your home page of the Report site. For that you need to browse to the home page of the Report Site -> Site Actions -> Edit Page -> Click on “Add a web part” on a zone of your choice.

Add the “Key Performance Indicators” web part on the page.
KPI Web Part
KPI Web Part
Configure the KPI web part and specify the “Survey KPI” list as the source for the KPI web part and there you are.… KPI on your Report site.

 

Issue: Failure when adding web part to a web page in SharePoint.

with 2 comments

Symptoms:

  • When trying to close a web part from the SharePoint page, we get an error message :

 “The file is not checked out.  You must first check out this document before making changes.”

Web Parts Maintenance Page: If you have permission, you can use this page to temporarily close Web Parts or remove personal settings. For more information, contact your site administrator. 

WebPart CheckOut Error

WebPart CheckOut Error

If we go to the Web part maintenance page using “?Contents=1” at the end of the .aspx page

Getting to the Web part maintenance page

Getting to the Web part maintenance page

Now try to either close or delete the web part from that page, we get an error :

 “Could not complete the operation. The file is not checked out. You must check out the document before making changes.”

Web Part Check Out Error

Web Part Check Out Error

 

I tired to check out the document from the IE as well as from SharePoint Designer, but we still get the same symptoms.

 

Work-around #1:

This workaround does not actually resolve the issue completely, but I found that out while trying to get rid of that error message. 

  • Browse to the SharePoint page where you want to modify the web part. Make sure that you are logged in as the site admin or with a user account that has modify permission over the site.
  • Click on Site Actions -> Edit Page.

Now you can close the specific web part that you were not able to close before.

 

Work-around #2

  • Browse to the Reports site and click on “View All Site Content”
View All Site Content

View All Site Content

  • Browse to “Pages” under document libraries. I was working with the default.aspx page and thus, by default it is stored under the pages directory of the site. You might be working with some other pages and so basically you need to browse to the library where you have stored the .aspx page where the web part exist.
  • Click on the drop down of the .aspx page and select “View Properties”
Document Drop Down Properties
Document Drop Down Properties
  • Check Out the file from the properties page and then go back and try to close the web part and that should work. You can even “Check Out” the file using the drop down menu -> Check Out. Now, if you do not wish to create a new version of the file, you can discard the check out after you have deleted the web part. But that would revert back the changes. You will need to check in the .aspx page file so that other users are able to see the page after the modifications are made.

Now, I am not too sure why the above settings do not work when we check out the file from SharePoint Designer or from the Edit Page view of the page. But this seems to do the trick and works great all the time.

Written by amolghanwat

September 30, 2008 at 5:48 pm

Error: requires a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible application and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or greater.

with one comment

I Started off with installing Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 in my development environment. Just to be sure that I do have any bugs or issues, I installed MOSS and WSS SP1. When I started this blog, I created a category of “Office Integration”. On that basis, I tried creating a new site and in the document library uploaded a new Word 2007 document. I clicked on the document drop-down menu and tried to open the document in Microsoft Office Word application and got the following error message :

 

‘New Document’ requires a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible application and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or greater. To add a document to this document library, click on ‘Upload Document’ button

 

Error - WSS SharePoint Compatible 893698

Error - WSS SharePoint Compatible 893698

Now I have checked the Office Version and the internet Explorer version and both were meeting the SharePoint requirements. IE was 6.0.1 and Office 2007 Enterprise Edition. I was a bit confused and did not know how to go ahead. Because, the basic Office applications were not integrated with SharePoint.

 

Here is what I did to resolve the issue:

 

  • Go to Add/Remove Programs and select Microsoft Office 2007 -> Click on the “Change” button
Add/Remove Programs - Office 2007 Application
Add/Remove Programs – Office 2007 Application
  • On the next screen select “Add or Remove Features” and click on the “Continue” button
Office 2007 - Add Remove Features
Office 2007 – Add Remove Features
  • On the next screen, select “Office tools” drop down. The problem here is that Windows SharePoint Services Support files are not installed with Office application. Thus, we need to select them Windows Sharepoint Services Support tools from the drop down and make sure that select “Run from My Computer” or “Run All from My Computer” options.
Office 2007 Add Remove Features - Office tools
Office 2007 Add Remove Features – Office tools
Office 2007 - WSS Support Files
Office 2007 – WSS Support Files
  • Allow the setup to complete
Office Setup - Complete
Office Setup – Complete
This should most probabaly do the trick. Even after doing the above things, you do not resolve the issue or if you are using another version of Office, I would request you to go to the following KB article and then resolve the issue as per the product version.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893698/en-us

Written by amolghanwat

September 29, 2008 at 2:58 pm