I completed a production database move two days ago and sadly the process didn’t go down as documented on various technet sites.  To cut a long story short, here are the steps I completed to successfully move the databases:

- Make a complete backup of the Site Collection that needs to be moved.  This may be completed via the stsadm command:  STSADM -o backup -url http://portal.domain.com -filename c:\backups\backup.bak;
- Disconnect all servers from the SharePoint farm using the SharePoint Configuration Wizard;
- Recreate the farm on the Central Administration Host using SharePoint Configuration Wizard. At this point, be sure to enter the details of the new SQL Server;
- Once the farm is created, execute the restore command for the Site Collection backed up in the first step: STSADM -o restore -url http://portal.domain.com -filename c:\backups\backup.bak; (Ensure you have alternate mappings configured when using DNS at this point)
- Recreate Shared Services Provider (in a multi server farm, ensure that all servers have been added before completing this step as the Index Server needs to be configured before this step);
- Once this has been recreated, you will need to configure the following: Profile Import, Search, Usage Analysis, Diagnostic Logging.

This process worked for me, but I’m pretty sure there is an easier way to do this as the reconfiguring of the SSP can work for a smallish environment but is not feasible where search and other entities have been heavily configured to deliver additional value.

I recently started using OneNote mobile again and just thought I need to rant about it online a little. I really enjoy the adhoc nature of OneNote especially for meetings / general thoughts and having this extension on my phone is fantastic.

I haven’t been a huge fan of Windows Mobile (guess because I never used it) and ever since I started using it recently it’s open up other areas of usage for technology on the go, enter OneNote Mobile.

I’m on the road a fairly large part of the day as I’ve moved in the business development department at my company. Keeping tabs of what I’m busy with and what I need to get to gets more and more tricky as many of my meetings happen in and around coffee shops and lunch bistro’s. Taking out a laptop and typing out large OneNote / Word notes of a particular meeting isn’t for this reason not always practical. What I do to overcome this is simply carry a small notepad (yes pen and paper) with me along with my trusty Windows Mobile phone.

After I have completed a number of meetings I will typically just add the notes into OneNote Mobile under the appropriate heading (date for example). These notes, whether it be an audio note (great while you driving) or a typed note (post a meeting) get synchronized to my OneNote Notebook on my laptop for easy “action” at a later point.

As metnioned before keeping notes in this manner is also a fairly easy way to illustrate to your peers what you are up on a day to day basis. This, in the current economic climate, is great especially in the business development team where you are in charge of running your own diary.

OneNote Mobile has given me an scribble pad on my phone which, with proper discipline becomes either a “to do” list or a “what have I been up to today” diary.

While implementing variations we started investigating how document libraries will react once the source sites are updated. The scenarios were pretty interesting and I thought I’d quickly share them:

Scenario 1 – Web part is propagated

Initially we were not entirely sure how the creation of a web part in the source site will react as variations is ’sold’ to only keep web content in synch.  We were pretty happy to find that if you drag a web part onto a page in the source site, the actual web part is also propagated to the target site(s).

Scenario 2 – Document Library with same name?

So now that the document library web part has propagated to the target site, what document library is actually referenced in the web part?  To our astonishment we found that if a document library with the exact same name exists in the target and source library the web part on the target site will reference its document library.  Therefore if a document is uploaded in the source site, English, the document will not be visible in say German.

Scenario 3 – Document Library with different name?

Once we realised that scenario 2 removes the ability to manage documents across multiple languages we started scratching with options and found that if the source document library has a unique name, the web part that is propagated to the target will in fact reference back to the source site.  Therefore if a document is uploaded in the source site, English, it will also be visible in German.

So you need to develop on Forms Services, but your MOSS installation does not have the enterprise features installed. Never fear, just enable it via Central Admin – PROBLEM. While trying to enable it, with a valid enterprise key, the process fails.

To get around this problem, delete the existing timer job definition and repeat the process. Ignore the error, execute the Configuration Wizard and restart your MOSS server – Badaboomtish!

Seamless upgrade path hey?

SharePoint Search is very powerful, but in most cases it does take a skilled consultant or developer to unlock the potential of this feature in SharePoint.

I’ve seen a number of interesting examples, but one that really sticks out is on http://www.starbucks.com.  Here you can search for the nearest Starbucks coffee bar based on location and the results are integrated into Microsoft Live Earth.  I was a bit suprised when a colleague at Microsoft showcased this and afterward mentioned that it is using SharePoint.  Go and have a look, it’s well worth it and really broadens the horizon for the application of SharePoint Search not only in the enterprise, but also on externally facing websites.

Another great article that I came across while reading up a bit more on search was this one from Robert Mclean on the SADEV website.  Here he gives a broad overview of Faceted and Federated search and also touches on an interesting development addition which allows for better SharePoint Search usage amongst users.  The article can be found here – http://www.sadev.co.za/node/262.

To make your SharePoint portal snow, add the following line into the <head> section of your master page:

<script src="http://s3.wordpress.com/wp-content/plugins/snow/snowstorm.js?ver=2" type="text/javascript" />

The unsupported easy way to do this is to simply open default.master located in TEMPLATE\GLOBAL and add it directly in there.

If you don’t want to link directly to the file on wordpress, simply save the .js file somewhere in your layouts folder and reference it like that.

Thanks wordpress for making this available for us to pillage That’s the Christmas spirit!

If you need to insert a thumbnail into your content, use the following url as the image source:

http://servername/_layouts/AssetUploader.aspx?Size=Medium&ImageUrl=/TestSite/Pictures/TechnicalLead.jpg

The ‘Size’ parameter can be set to Small or Medium, and the ‘ImageUrl’ parameter is the location of the image that you wish to generate the thumbnail from. This image must be located within the site collection. If the url to your full size image was http://servername/sitename/listname/filename.jpg, the value to pass here would be /sitename/listname/filename.jpg.

I’ve found this comes in handy when creating announcements with links to screenshots or photos, where you require an image to be dynamically resized to a thumbnail.

Installation Failure

While installing CRM 4.0 on Windows Server 2008 I was faced with the following error message during the installation:

“Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Server.ConfigureAspNetAccountAction failed.”

To resolve this issue, ensure that you select Network Service when asked to configure the service account for the installation.

Here is the full article from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950100

Read my recent article for iWeek magazine on the topic of agile development and some of the business benefits it can provide.

From the article:

“Agile methods enable software development teams to deliver the highest possible business value in the shortest amount of time, while being able to adapt to changes in requirements during development. This is a huge leap forward in terms of value for money, in an industry where late delivery, inflexible requirements, cost overruns, and quality issues are all too common.

So what are some of the business benefits of an agile approach?”

Configuring FBA on MOSS 2007 is fairly straight forward, but if you do not pay attention to each step, you could be in a world of pain.  I found the configuration pretty simple and the value it gives the organisation immense.

I did however run into one small issue on my initial testing server.  The famous “Uknown Error”.  This error occurred as I tried to authenticate my user.  Turns out I had forgotten to give the application pool identity rights to the custom database created for my FBA user store.  Once allocated all worked like a charm.

I couldn’t find anything on the net about this so either everyone started from scratch when they saw this error or simply haven’t run into it.  In any event, hope this helps!