An unexpected error has occurred when trying to create an Enterprise Search Center in SharePoint 2010

An unexpected error has occurred when trying to create an Enterprise Search Center in SharePoint 2010

  6/22/2013 03:01:00 AM    Unknown

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An unexpected error has occurred when trying to create an Enterprise Search Center in SharePoint 2010

I tried to create an Enterprise Search Center within a site collection in SharePoint 2010. But I’ve received this error message all the time. I’ve also tried to create a new site collection, but without success.

For resolving this issue you need to enable “SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature”.

Step to enable the Publishing Infrastructure feature. Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Site collection features -> SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure and click on “Activate“

After this step you can also create the Enterprise Search Center without any error messages

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What is Managed Metadata Service and how to configure Managed Metadata Service in SharePoint 2010?

What is Managed Metadata Service and how to configure Managed Metadata Service in SharePoint 2010?

  6/21/2013 04:04:00 PM    Yogesh Sharma

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How to configure Managed MetaData Service in SharePoint 2010?
OR
What is Managed MetaData Service?

MetaData:- Before to understand this service, we need to understand MetaData. MetaData in simple words "data about data". All data files keeps some MetaData properties such as:
a). Which way we create the data file?
b). What is the purpose of data file?
c). When we create the data file? (Time and Date specifically)
d). How creates the data file? (Creator or Author)
e). Where the data file is located? (local computer location or network location)

NOTE: These are most common MetaData properties.

Managed MetaData Services:- To understand the Managed MetaData Service, we need to understand following main things "Term Store", "Term" and "Term Set".

Term Store : This is the database, where our managed meta data get store.

A "Term" is word or phase that can be associated with an item in SharePoint 2010. e.g.

A "Term Set" is bunch of related terms.

How to configure Managed Metadata Service in SharePoint 2010?

OR

What is Managed Metadata Service?

Metadata: - Before to understand this service, we need to understand Metadata. Metadata in simple words "data about data". All data files keep some Metadata properties such as:

A). which way we create the data file?

b). what is the purpose of data file?

c). When we create the data file? (Time and Date specifically)

d). How creates the data file? (Creator or Author)

e). where the data file is located? (Local computer location or network location)

NOTE: These are most common Metadata properties.

Managed Metadata Services: - To understand the Managed Metadata Service, we need to understand following main things "Term Store", "Term" and "Term Set".

Term Store: This is the database, where our Managed Metadata get store.

A "Term" is word or phrase that can be associated with an item in SharePoint 2010. e.g.

A "Term Set" is bunch of related terms.

Terms can be divided into two types. 

Managed Term: Generally its pre-defined terms. It can only be created by user with appropriate permissions, and are often organized into hierarchy.

Enterprise Keyword Term : These are simply words or phrase that, have been associated to SharePoint Server 2010 items. All enterprise keywords are part of a single, non-hierarchical Term Set called it keyword set.

How to configure Managed Metadata services step by step?

1.1 Create a site collection for content hub.

Steps: - Go to the Central Admin site and click on "Create Site Collection"

 

1.2 Choose Web Application Name, Site Collection Name, URL, Site Template and Site Collection Admin. If we want, we can also define some storage quota also.

1.3 Click on OK. The site collection has been created. It will provide us the URL. e.g. http://<web-application name>/sites/CTH/.

2.1 Now we need to create Manged metadata service.

2.1 Go to Central Admin page and click on "Manage service applications"

2.2 Click on "New" and then click on "Managed Metadata Service"

2.3 Then we need to fill the following information 

      Service Application Name : TestManagedMedaDataService

      Database Server Name     : Databaseservername (We need to here our database                                                            

                                              server name).                                              

      Database Name                : TestManagedMedaDataService (As per best practice we                                                

                                               put database Name as per service name).                                              

      Database authentication     : Windows authentication 

      Failover Server (Optional)  : If we have configured any failover server, we can

                                               mentioned it here.                                      

      Application pool                : We used our shared application pool "SharePoint Web 

                                                Services" for this Service. If we want we can use 

                                                different application pool for this service.                                                

                                                Give register service account.

      Content Type HUB            : http://webapplicationname/sites/CTH/ (type the site 

                                                collection name that we

                                                Have created in first (1.1) step.

                                                Then select the both check boxes

                                                "Report syndication import errors from Site Collection 

                                                using this service    

                                                Application" and 

                                                "Add this service application to the farm default list".                              

                       

   Then Click on "Ok" and our service application has been created.

3.1 Check site collection hub is added and the service application is default storage    

      location for column specific term sets.

3.1 Select the "Managed Metadata Service Application" and click on "Properties"

3.2 Check the all following boxes.

      Check "The service application is the default storage location for keywords."

      Check "This service application is the default storage location for column specific  

                  term sets."

      Check "Consumer content types from the Content Types Gallery at 

                  http://webapplication/sites/CTH.

      Check "Push-down Content Type Publishing updates from the Content Type Gallery 

                  to sub-sites and Lists using the content type."

      Click on "OK".

4.1 Open Term store management tool and create term set and then term.

4.1 Select the "Managed Metadata Service Application" and then click on "Manage".

4.2 Create a "New Group" and verify the following two things.

      Available Service Applications   :  Managed Metadata Service Application

      Term Store Administrator         :  add our user name (abc\username)

4.3 Create a group and give a name. e.g.: Applications

4.4 Create a Term Set.

      We have created here following Term Set inside the "Applications" group.

      1. Microsoft

      2. IBM

      3. Oracle

4.5 Then create Terms inside the "Term Sets"

      We need to create following structure.

      Application

                     Microsoft 

                                     Active Directory

                                     Exchange

                                     SharePoint

                     IBM   

                                     Lotus

                                     Tivoli

                                     Think Pad

                     SUN

                                     Java

                                     Java EE

                                     Tomcat Server   

4.6 If we want, we can set some "Other Labels" on our Terms. e.g.

      SharePoint: MOSS 2007, SharePoint Server, SharePoint 2010 and etc. (These   

      keywords do work as Aliases) and then "SAVE" it.

          

4.7 Then we need to create keywords.

      Such as: Training, Demos, Practice, Applications, Software and testing etc. (Which   

      words we use in our organization).

Now the Managed Metadata Service has been configured.

How to use Managed Metadata Column in List.

5.1 Create a Custom List and then create a Managed Metadata Column with following information.

      Column Name: Course Offers

      Multiple Value Field:  Check on Allow multiple value

      Display format         : Select on Display the entire path to the term in the field.

      Term Set Settings    : Select on "Use a managed term set" (We can search here in our   

                                      terms by Keywords)                                       

      Default Value           : SharePoint (Choose any term as our default value).

      Click on "OK" and save this column.

      

5.2 Now we can create an item and save. As we can see in this below screenshot. We just    

      write "sha" and it automatically picked the main course name.

     

Wish you good luck!! :)

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How to check ULS Logs by Correlation ID in SharePoint 2010 with PowerShell Command?

How to check ULS Logs by Correlation ID in SharePoint 2010 with PowerShell Command?

  6/14/2013 11:24:00 AM    Yogesh Sharma

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How to identify Web front end server by Correlation ID?

OR

How to check ULS logs by PowerShell command?

In SharePoint 2010 Microsoft added Correlation ID features.

Correlation ID: Whenever you receive any error in SharePoint 2010, it generates logs with a unique Correlation ID. Then we go in to Web front end server and find this error by Correlation ID. The main problems come when we have multiple Web Front End servers. Then we need to do quite big exercise to find the errors. The PowerShell provides us very robust command for check the ULS logs by Correlation ID.

You can run this command and get result in various forms.

For get result in command prompt.

Get-SPlogEvent | ?{$_.Correlation -eq "<GUID>"} | select Area, Category, Level, EventID, Message | Format-List

e.g: Get-SPlogEvent | ?{$_.Correlation -eq "4aee5136-8ae1-4a26-bbe4-cb50001bc113"} | select Area, Category, Level, EventID, Message | Format-List

For get result as log file or as text file.

Get-SPlogEvent | ?{$_.Correlation -eq "<GUID>"} | select Area, Category, Level, EventID, Message | Format-List > C:\Error.log

e.g.: Get-SPlogEvent | ?{$_.Correlation -eq "4aee5136-8ae1-4a26-bbe4-cb50001bc113"} | select Area, Category, Level, EventID, Message | Format-List > C:\Error.log

If you have any time slot then you can get faster result.

Get-SPLogEvent -StartTime YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss | ?{$_.Correlation -eq "<GUID>"} | select Area, Category, Level, EventID, Message | Format-List > C:\SPError.log

The error report file would be similar to this below screen shot.

 

This command gives you big relief to finding the exact location of the error.

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What is extended application in SharePoint 2010?

What is extended application in SharePoint 2010?

  6/12/2013 12:23:00 PM    Yogesh Sharma

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Extend a Web application: - This is a very interesting feature of SharePoint. Suppose we have 1 web application and, we want to use 2 different URL for different audience or with different authentication. Then we need to extend a web application in to a new zone. We call it "Extend a Web application".

Now you must be wondering, How to do it?

1. We need to create a separate Internet Information Services (IIS) Web site to serve the

    same content, but with unique URL and authentication type.

2. An extended web application can use up to 5 network zone (Default. Intranet, Internet, 

    Extranet, Custom). We can use two different zones for same application to providing

    different authentication.

3. We need to identify for which authentication we would use into extended web  
     application.

    Let’s choose it Windows-classic Authentication.

    How to extend a web application with Windows-classics Authentication step by step?

1. The user must be member of farm administrator SharePoint group and the member of  

    local administrator group on the computer running Central Administration.

2. Then click on "Manage Web Applications"

3. Then select the web application that you want to extend.

4. Then click on Extend.

5. On the "Extend Web Application to another IIS Web Site". You need to fill 

    following information.

    A). select "Use an existing IIS web Site"

    b). in the "Port" section, this field will be populated by current port number.

    c). in the "Host Header" section, this field is optional. You can type host name      

         (www.abc.com) in this box.                          

         That you want to use for access the web application.

    NOTE: Generally this field not set, unless you want to configure two or more web     

     sites same port number on the same server and DNS has been configured to multiple 

     server names to the same server. 

    e). in the "Path" section, this field is populated with the current path of that Web site.

    f). in the "Security Configuration" section, you need to configure authentication 

     and encryption for your Extended Web application.

    g). in the "Authentication Provider" click on "NTLM"

    h). in the "Allow Anonymous" section, click on "NO"

    i). in the "Use secure socket layer" section, click on "NO"

   j). In the "Public URL" section, you need to type the domain name for all sites that user will access in this

       Web application. This URL will be used as the base URL in links shown on pages with in this web

       application zone.

  h). In the "Public URL" section, select the zone to use for the application.

       (You can choose FIVE different zones for ONE Web application)

 Click on OK and our Web application has been extended.

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Understanding of SharePoint Search Architecture or How the SharePoint search exactly work?

Understanding of SharePoint Search Architecture or How the SharePoint search exactly work?

  6/08/2013 11:43:00 AM    Yogesh Sharma

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How the SharePoint search work? 

OR

Understanding the SharePoint search architecture.

Let me try to make it easy for you. There are two main roles in SharePoint search that we need to understand.

First is Index Server and second is Search Server.

The purpose of Index Server is collecting data and looking data from where it is to be searched. Where data can be relayed from any source and then indexed. When the data is stored in Index server or defined, we call it Content Sources.

Content Sources are locations/ domains or areas from where index server fetches the information. The information can be defined by the administrator at the time of configuration of content sources. The content you want to search for may include public web site data, external web site, documents (it could be your local SharePoint environment, file shares and local hard drives).

Once these content sources are defined, you have to setup the schedule. The schedule runs every midnight or incrementally every 15 minutes and so. (You may set this schedule as per the data size or as per your requirement). This way your content sources get updated and index the data. So now if you go out and save a Microsoft word file, it indexes the content of a file, meta data, and everything that is related to the file. The index information gets saved on local hard drive of the Index Server (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Data\Office Server\Applications). After that it also generates some data and gets stored in databases alongwith inside the search database.

(The data goes along with index files that go on your index server; both loads data are in kind of one unit).

When this happens, index server goes out and index the files on index server. Then get propagate to the search server. If you have multiple search servers then it will index to all search servers.

So propagation is happening in over the environment. If you have huge index file, it would send data in small bit of files cluster to the search server. It means if your Index server has 4 GB data, please make sure your Front end server should have the same amount of free disk space.

Very important thing to be noted: The Index server and the Database server information that pretend to your search cannot be separated. Hmmm... you must be thinking what does it mean??

It means Index data can’t be backed up or you don't need to take backup of this index data. If you lost your index data, don't worry just go and re-index it. If you have 100 GB index data it will take 2 to 3 hours to re-index.

When user does search, the search server or the query server goes out and looks to the index that exists on the local drive of index server. Then it returns with the search result.

Search Configuration is complete.

Let's discuss some common practical questions.

1) If I want to do search for File Share? (Shared drive)

 If you add them in content source or the data got indexed, SharePoint will provide you the result.

2) If I upload some non-Microsoft document? For e.g. PDF files

Generally SharePoint does not index non-Microsoft files. For this we need to install iFilter.

Once you install iFilter then index server is able to understand and read the content the PDF file. Then SharePoint can search for PDF file and its body contents.

3.) What is the use of content access account?

Whatever data you want to index by index server, for example- Web Site data, external web site, documents, it could be your local SharePoint environment, file shares, local hard drives. Content access account must have the permission of the sources. The content access account works as an eye for SharePoint Search.

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Introduction to content types

Introduction to content types

  6/01/2013 05:33:00 PM    Yogesh Sharma

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Content types (content type: A reusable group of settings for a
category of content. Use content types to manage the metadata,
templates, and behaviors of items and documents consistently. Content
types are defined at the site level and used on lists and libraries.)
enable organizations to organize, manage, and handle content in a
consistent way across a site collection. By defining content types for
specific kinds of documents or information products, an organization
can ensure that each of these groups of content is managed in a
consistent way.
In this article

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 What is a content type?

 How content types work at the site level

 How content types work in lists and libraries


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What is a content type?
In the course of a single project, a business might produce several
different kinds of content, for example, proposals, legal contracts,
statements of work, and product design specifications. Although these
documents might be stored together because they are related to a
single project, they can be created, used, shared, and retained in
different ways. A business might want to collect and maintain
different kinds of metadata about each kind of content.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 enables organizations to
define these different sets of documents as content types. A content
type is a group of reusable settings that describe the shared
behaviors for a specific type of content. Content types can be defined
for any item type in Office SharePoint Server 2010, including
documents, list items, and folders. Each content type can specify:

The columns (metadata) that you want to assign to items of this type.
The document template on which to base new items of this type
(document content types only).
The custom New, Edit, and Display forms to use with this content type.
The workflows that are available for items of this content type.
The custom solutions or features that are associated with items of
this content type.
The information management policies that are associated with items of
this content type.
The Document Information Panel, which is available in compatible
Microsoft Office programs for items of this content type.
The document conversions that are available for items of this content
type (document content types only).

Content types provide organizations with a way to manage and organize
content consistently across different lists and libraries in a site
collection (site collection: A set of Web sites on a virtual server
that have the same owner and share administration settings. Each site
collection contains a top-level Web site and can contain one or more
subsites.), and they also make it possible for a single list or
library to contain multiple item types or document types.

How content types work at the site level
Content types are organized into a hierarchy that allows one content
type to inherit its characteristics from another content type. This
allows categories of documents to share attributes across an
organization, while allowing teams to customize these attributes for
particular sites or lists.

Content types are first defined centrally in the Site Content Type
Gallery for a site. Content types that are defined at the site level
are called site content types. Site content types are available for
use in any subsites of the site for which they have been defined. For
example, if a site content type is defined in the Site Content Type
Gallery for the top-level site in a site collection, it is available
for use in lists and libraries in all of the sites in that site
collection. Site content types can be added individually to lists or
libraries and customized for use in those lists or libraries. When an
instance of a site content type is added to a list or library, it is
called a list content type. List content types are children of the
site content types from which they are created.

How inheritance works for site content types
When you define a new custom site content type in the Site Content
Type Gallery for a site, you start by choosing an existing parent site
content type in the Site Content Type Gallery as your starting point.
The new site content type that you create inherits all of the
attributes of its parent site content type, such as its document
template, read-only setting, workflows, and columns. After you create
this new site content type, you can make changes to any of these
attributes.

Whenever you make changes to site content types, you can specify
whether you want these changes to be applied to any other child site
content types or list content types that inherit their attributes from
these site content types. Only the attributes that the child site
content types or list content types share with a parent content type
can be updated. If a child site content type has been customized with
additional attributes that the parent site content type does not have
(for example, extra columns), these customizations are not overwritten
when the child site content type is updated. Changes that you make to
a site content type do not affect the parent site content type from
which the site content type was created.

How site content types support content management
By defining site content types, you can ensure that entire categories
of documents are handled consistently across your organization. For
example, all customer deliverable documents in an organization may
require a specific set of metadata, such as account number, project
number, and project manager. You can help ensure that account numbers
and project numbers are associated with all of the customer
deliverable documents in your organization by creating a Customer
Deliverable site content type that has required columns for each of
these items of metadata. All customer deliverable document types in
the site collection that inherit from this site content type then
require users to specify information for these columns. If you need to
track additional metadata related to these customer deliverable
documents, you can add another required column to the Customer
Deliverable site content type. Then you can update all child list
content types that inherit from this site content type, adding the new
column to all customer deliverable documents.

How content types work in lists and libraries
If you have a list or library that is set up to allow multiple content
types, you can add content types to this list or library from the
group of site content types that are available for your site.

When you add a content type to a list or library, you make it possible
for that list or library to contain items of that type. The New
command in that list or library lets users create new items of that
type. One of the key advantages of content types for lists and
libraries is that they make it possible for a single list or library
to contain multiple item types or document types, each of which may
have unique metadata, policies, or behaviors.

How inheritance works for list content types
When an instance of a site content type is added to a list or library,
it is a child of the site content type from which it was created. This
list content type inherits all of the attributes of its parent site
content type, such as its document template, read-only setting,
workflows, and columns. A list content type can be customized for the
specific list or library to which it has been added. These
customizations are not applied to the parent site content type. If the
parent site content type for a list content type is updated, the child
list content type can inherit these changes (if the person who
maintains the site content type chooses to apply the updates to all
child content types). If any of the attributes that the child list
content type shares with the parent site content type were customized
for the list content type, these customizations can be overwritten
when the list content type inherits the changes from the parent site
content type. If the list content type has been customized with
additional attributes that the parent content type does not have (for
example, extra columns), these customizations are not overwritten when
the child list content type inherits changes from the parent site
content type.

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What Is Add All Authenticated Users in Permissions?

What Is Add All Authenticated Users in Permissions?

  6/01/2013 05:28:00 PM    Yogesh Sharma

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When you are setting up your site, or adding new members, you may have

noticed one of your options is

Add All Authenticated Users

You may already have created a group (TeamSite Users or TeamSite

Contributors) and assigned your site members to one of these groups,

where permissions are associated.

This additional option functions in a similar way.

However, adding this option effectively renders your site open to

anyone with authenticated credentials. This means that someone who is

logged on to the corporate network has rights to see your site and its

content.

This is useful for

Surveys

Publicity

Cross-team sites

Informational content

Because you can give the NT4 Authenticated Users read-only

permissions. It is NOT advisable for confidential documentation or any

information you would not want to be visible outside your team.

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