How to call SharePoint REST Web Services from SharePoint Designer 2013 and Fiddler?

What?

SharePoint 2013 introduced a new action in SharePoint Designer 2013 workflows to call a http web service called "Call HTTP Web Service".

There are thousand other blog posts explaining how to use that action but in this post I am going to focus on and detail how to use GET and POST http methods with REST based native SharePoint 2013 web services.

Why?

SharePoint 2013 (and previous versions) uses a client side “token” to validate posts back to SharePoint to prevent attacks where the user might be tricked into posting data back to the server. This token is known by many names; form digest ormessage digest or request digest. The token is unique to a user and a site and is only valid for a (configurable) limited time.

Calling a SharePoint 2013 REST POST http method therefore requires adding the Request Digest token to the request header of the request as the “X-RequestDigest” header.

How?

The first step to test out the queries is to use CAML Designer 2013 and Fiddler.

Inconvenient Document Template Access Issues and Send To connections in SharePoint

What?

You have a SharePoint site (Site A) that has got a content type with a document template attached to it.
You have created a few documents using the document template and them moved them into a different site (Site B).

A user who has access to the document in the new location (Site B) but does not have access to Site A tries to access it and gets prompted to authenticate against Site A.

Eventually being a not so technical end user, he gets his accounts locked after trying his credentials repeatedly.

How to reuse / associate list workflows built using SharePoint Designer 2013 on multiple lists

What?

How to reuse / associate list workflows built using SharePoint Designer 2013 on different lists

Why?

You want to built a reusable list workflow using SharePoint Designer 2013 and be able to attach them to multiple lists.

You receive an error "The {Send To Connection} site could not be found or accessed." when you try to send a document using "Send To" in SharePoint 2013

What?

You receive an error "The {Send To Connection} site could not be found or accessed." when you try to send a document using "Send To" connections in SharePoint 2013.

Why?

I have tried to copy documents from one site collection (Site A) to another (Site B) using Send To connections in SharePoint 2013. Documents sent from Site A to Site B were sent successfully whereas documents that are sent from Site B to Site A failed with the exception: "The {Send To Connection} site could not be found or accessed."

How to fix SharePoint 2013 Designer list workflows on pages libraries that automatically get cancelled with HTTP 500 exception

What?

List workflows that are built using SharePoint 2013 Designer on pages libraries in SharePoint 2013 get cancelled automatically with internal status "Cancelled" as shown below:

Migrate browser based InfoPath Forms with code behind from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2013

What?

How to successfully migrate browser based InfoPath Forms with code behind from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2013?

In this post I will try to explain some of the obstacles that you might be hit with and the ways to get around them.

Please use this is a general guide to understand the overall migration process.

InfoPath assembly Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.dll missing in SharePoint 2013?

What?

I am working on migrating an InfoPath Form Solution with code-behind from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2013.

After the old solution was upgraded to Visual Studio 2012 on a SharePoint 2013 server, Visual Studio complained that the assembly Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.dll could not be found.

Where?

Not in GAC
Not in 15\Bin
Not in 15\ISAPI

It is found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\15.0\Bin

Nintex Workflow 2010: Integer vs Number

What?

A workflow that was built using Nintex Workflow 2010 in SharePoint Server 2010 was working fine for a couple of months and it suddenly started to throw workflow errors.

The workflow was erroring because of a "for each" action that iterates through a collection of integers.

SharePoint 2010 - Internal server error exception: System.ServiceModel.FaultException Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.KeywordQueryInternal.Execute()

What?

You might receive an internal server error exception when you use Search Core / Custom Search Results Web Part in SharePoint 2010 with the below exception in ULS log:

Internal server error exception: System.ServiceModel.FaultException Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.KeywordQueryInternal.Execute()

SharePoint Health Analyzer - The following servers have not executed any timer jobs in the last 2 hours

What?

We have setup a new SharePoint 2010 production farm with 2 web servers. (One WFE and one APP). In the new farm, we have started to see a critical issue in the health analyzer that says "The following servers have not executed any timer jobs in the last 2 hours"

SharePoint 2010: Linq Exception - An item with the same key has already been added.

What?

All of a sudden we started to see a weird exception in our intranet "System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added." being thrown by a custom web part that shows results that are indexed by SharePoint 2010 Search.

Nintex Workflow 2010 - The dreaded "Workflow failed to run" error

What?

Workflows that are built using Nintex Workflow 2010 fail with error: "[Workflow Name] failed to run"
when the following actions are executed:

• Task Reminder Action
• Task Delegation Action
• Pause For

You may also notice that the workflows also don't perform as they should.

Nintex Workflow 2010 crashes IE unexpectedly during events such as when a new string variable is created in a workflow

What?

Nintex Workflow 2010 crashes IE unexpectedly and randomly when certain actions are performed such as when a new string variable is created in a workflow

Why?

Nintex Workflow 2010 at the time of posting this blog is not fully compatible with IE 10. It works perfectly with IE 9 and IE 8.

SharePoint 2010: User Profile Synchronization Service fails to start with a message "Failed to configure ILM" in ULS

What?

I have setup a new SharePoint 2010 non-production farm in a single server environment with Active Directory, SQL Server 2008 and SharePoint 2010 installed. (Not stand-alone installation)
The dreaded User Profile Synchronization Service fails to start as usual in a newly setup SharePoint 2010 farm.

The following error was found in the ULS logs:

UserProfileApplication.SynchronizeMIIS: Failed to configure ILM, will attempt during next rerun. Exception: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Specified collection 'StringSchemaCollection' cannot be dropped because it is used by object...

Note that the above message shows up as an entry with High priority and not as an exception in ULS log.

Why?

There could be hell a lot of reasons why the User Profile Synchronization Service fails to start. First of all, it does not work in a single server stand alone installation with inbuilt database.

In my case, there were a couple of issues and I will try to explain how I fixed them in this post.

Access denied for all users except Farm Account after a SharePoint 2010 content database restore

What?

I successfully did a restore of a SharePoint 2010 site from production into a dev farm which is in a different domain. I am able to access the site normally using the farm account. All other accounts got access denied including the Setup Account.

I verified that the correct application pool is being used, tried to grant access to the setup account as well as the search account at web application level as well but no use.

Why?

The super reader and writer accounts are required to be configured in order for permissions to work normally.

SharePoint 2010 Managed Metadata Import Error "Bulk load data conversion error (CustomSortOrder)"

What?

You receive the below error when you try to Export/Import Managed Metadata Service Application from one farm to another.

Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData : Bulk load data conversion error (tru

ncation) for row 11, column 7 (CustomSortOrder).

One of the easiest ways to backup/restore Managed Metadata Service Application from one farm/environment to another is using import/export functionality.

I have explained this procedure a little while ago in this blog post

I have been successfully using the Import/Export method with no issues until I stumbled across this error today.

Why?

As the error hints, the error occurred due to specifying custom sort order in one of the term sets.

Speaking at Melbourne SharePoint User Group (MSPUG) on the 26th September 2012

What?

I am going to speak at Melbourne SharePoint User Group (MSPUG)  - http://mspuginfo.wordpress.com

When?

On Wednesday, September 26th 2012 5:30PM  (for 6pm start)

Where?

Microsoft Melbourne,
Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place,
SouthBank, Melbourne,
Australia

How to mix HTTP and HTTPS pages in a SharePoint 2010 site?

What?

How to have a combination of both HTTP and HTTPS pages in the same SharePoint 2010 site with configuration only without writing code?

Why?

It is a very common requirement to have a mix of HTTP and HTTPS pages in public facing SharePoint sites. Examples of such pages generally are login pages, contact forms, new testimonial form pages, new user review form pages  and any other pages that capture sensitive data from users. In these cases, only those specific pages must be loaded as HTTPS pages where as the rest of the pages in the site must be loaded as HTTP pages.

How to fix SharePoint Designer 2010 error "The URL '_catalogs/masterpage/page layout.aspx' is invalid. It may refer to a nonexistent file or folder, or refer to a valid file or folder that is not in the current web."

What?

SharePoint Designer 2010 throws error "The URL '_catalogs/masterpage/page layout.aspx' is invalid. It may refer to a nonexistent file or folder, or refer to a valid file or folder that is not in the current web." when you attempt to update an existing page layout. All other page layouts can be updated normally.

Why?

There could be various reasons for this error. I have already explained about one of the various reasons that could trigger this error in this blog post earlier.

How?

This error occurs when there is an error in the page layout that is being modified. Clearly the error description is wrong and misleading :)

SharePoint 2010 - How to easily create links to existing SharePoint content in HTML Editor

What?

How to easily create links to existing SharePoint content in HTML Editor using [[ and Ctrl+Space?

 Why?

It is a common requirement to provide links to existing pages/documents/list items in SharePoint sites. This is especially true with wikis and publishing sites.

How?

While it is not difficult to copy the actual content urls manually, SharePoint 2010's HTML Editor offers a quick and convenient way to create links to existing content. This is especially useful when there is a need to create a new page during content contribution.