YASR: Alerts in SharePoint 2007

by community-syndication | Jun 13, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

One of the more popular quirk in SharePoint 2003 (remember the YASQ’s?) was the alerting mechanism. The alerts in SharePoint 2003 are OK at first sight: you can create an alert for a complete list or document library, or just for one item. The problem is that you can only create an alert for yourself. This makes sense if you think of alerts as ’RSS-avant-la-lettre’. But lots of people would like to create alerts for other users as well. Unfortunately this was not available out-of-the-box, although you could customize SharePoint by installing various (free) web parts to overcome this issue.

Recently I discovered that this YASQ has become a YASR (Yet Another SharePoint Relief): in SharePoint 2007 you can create alerts for other users! Just navigate to a list or document library, and from the Actions menu choose the Alert Me item.

On the New Alert page you can specify the details about the alert: title, type and destination. The new (and exciting) thing is here that you can enter multiple user accounts to which the alert should be sent.

Further down on the page there are more innovations. In SharePoint 2007 you can create an alert which is based on a specific view which opens quite some interesting possibilities. Finally you can still choose the interval to sent the alert (immediate, daily and weekly). New here is when you select the daily or weekly summary that you can specify the exact time when the alert should be sent (e.g. a daily summary at 7.00 am in the morning).

So are alerts perfect in the release? I think there’s still some room for improvements: when you create an alert for multiple users actually multiple alerts are created. This is a disadvantage when you would like to delete or update the alert that you’ve created for multiple users at the same time (you can’t push forward those changes). And finally it’s not (yet?) possible to create an alert for all the content of a site. But don’t get me wrong, I still consider this as a major YASR!

TechEd 2006 Precon Demos

by community-syndication | Jun 12, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Impersonation and authentication with ASP.Net

by community-syndication | Jun 12, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The task: make a web user authenticated (either with him directly providing user ID or password or through domain, if he is already logged in) and run ASP.Net code under his/her ID.

Frankly, that’s very easy, but I noticed that sometimes even very good developers don’t know how to do that. In short, impersonation element in web.config does the trick. If you know the rest, that’s it, you don’t need the rest of this post.

Otherwise, let’s just go through the process. First, go to your IIS folder, usually C:\Inetpub\wwwroot, and create a folder for your application/webservice, say C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Hello. You can do that in Windows Explorer. I will show an example with webservice,

In this folder you will need two files: web.config and Hello.asmx (assuming you want to call your webservice Hello).

Simple web.config looks like that:

<?xml version=”1.0″?>

<configuration xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0″>

            <appSettings/>

            <connectionStrings/>

            <system.web>

                        <customErrors mode=”Off” />

                        <compilation debug=”true” defaultLanguage=”c#” />

            </system.web>

</configuration>

I have added debugging and set default language to C#, but that’s optional. Hello.asmx file is very simple:

<%@ WebService Language=”C#” CodeBehind=”~/App_Code/Hello.cs” Class=”Hello” %>

Now, create a folder App_Code (C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Hello\App_Code), that’s where the actual code traditionally lives, and create Hello.cs file, already referenced in Hello.asmx:

using System;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.Services;

using System.Web.Services.Protocols;

[WebService(Namespace = “http://hellomedear.org/test/namespace/”)]

[WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]

public class Hello : System.Web.Services.WebService

{

    public Hello () {

    }

    [WebMethod]

    public string HelloMeDear()

    {

        return “Hello, ” + System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name.ToString() + “!”;

    }

}

This way it will return back the name of the current user, so we can track our progress. So, are we ready? Let’s try. Enter address http://yourmachine/hellome/hello.asmx in the browser. Oops… Error:

Server Error in ‘/’ Application.

Parser Error

Description: An error occurred during the parsing of a resource required to service this request. Please review the following specific parse error details and modify your source file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: Could not create type ‘Hello’.

Source Error:

Line 1:  <%@ WebService Language=”C#” CodeBehind=”~/App_Code/Hello.cs” Class=”Hello” %>

Source File: /hellome/hello.asmx    Line: 1

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.42; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.42

Why? You forgot to tell IIS that there will be ASP.Net code in this folder. Go to Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Internet Information Services, then select default web site, open it and you’ll see your folder shown with a folder icon. Right-click on it, select Properties, and click on “Create” button near the grayed textbox Application name. The click OK, and the icon will become something mechanical. That’s what you want.

Try again. Now you should get the list of available methods, which in our case is simply HelloMeDear. Click on it, and if you do that from the same machine, you will see a button Invoke, which let’s you try the method.

Click on it. A new windows will open with the result:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>

<string xmlns=”http://hellomedear.org/test/namespace/“>Hello, NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE!</string>

That’s nice, but NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE is not your ID. What happened?

Go again into properties of your folder in IIS management, pick Directory Security tab, and press Edit for Authentication and access control. See “Enable anonymous access” checked? That’s the problem. Even if you’ll get impersonation, it will be that automatic user marked in the textboxes next to it. Actually, let’s try it.

Go to your folder and open web.config file. First add

                        <identity impersonate=”true” />

into <system.web> element. Try again:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>

<string xmlns=”http://hellomedear.org/test/namespace/“>Hello, YOURMACHINE\IUSR_ YOURMACHINE!</string>

You’ve got that impersonated user. To avoid that, go again into IIS configuration for your folder, Directory Security, edit Authentication and access control, and uncheck Enable anonymous access, plus check checkbox Integrated Windows authentication. Try now:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>

<string xmlns=”http://hellomedear.org/test/namespace/“>Hello, YOURMACHINE\yourID!</string>

You’ve got it! Actually, it’s nice to add also:

                        <authentication mode=”Windows”/>

into your web.config file along with impersonation element. That’s it.

So, all steps in a short list:

1. Create IIS folder


2. Create web.config file (see below to get important element)


3. Create .asmx file (see above)


4. Create App_Code subfolder and create there .cs file (see above)


5. Go to Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Internet Information Services, open, select default website, select your folder under it, right click, Properties.


6. Create application (button on the left of Application name:)


7. Go to Directory Security tab, click on Edit for Authentication and access control


8. Uncheck Anonymous access, check Integrated Windows authentication


9. You are done. To try go to http://yourserver/hellome/hello.asmx

EDI Subsystem Error 120

by community-syndication | Jun 11, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Source: EDI Subsystem
Category: BizTalk Server 2006
Error encountered: ERROR (120) :
An error occurred in the File System connector. Check the details.Cant make a connection to  \\MyComputer\EDIDocsHome\Documents\PickupEDI. Errormessage: The operation cannot be performed because a network component is not started or because a specified name cannot be used.

Check the Security Setting for the file share “\\MyComputer\EDIDocsHome\Documents\PickupEDI”

Make sure “EDI Subsystem Users” group has Full Control to the share.

By default, it is located @ C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\BizTalk Server 2006\EDI\SubSystem

TechED Keynote

by community-syndication | Jun 11, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The Key note was given by Ray Ozzie, CTO of Microsoft. Major focus of his speech was on getting software that are “People Ready” with Office 2007 based products. The new buzz is about Client-Server Service Synergy, which is how the current systems get transformed from traditional Client/Server systems to Service based systems.

Microsoft also made four promises for future with the key note

1. Manage Complexity
2. Secure Anywhere
3. Advance Business with IT Solutions
4. Amplify the Impact of People

To illustrate the above, there were 4 videos following the “24”drama format (Choloe O’Brien) and it was pretty humorous. There is also a new product that is going to be released for securing client systems called Microsoft ForeFront. Forefront is designed for organizational level management of network and machine security. There were also some cool demos on Windows Server virtualization on how dynamically Virtual machines in future can be managed.

Also the announcement of development portal for windows live (http://dev.live.com) was announced.

Creation of Adapter MSMQ Configuration Store entries failed: Access is Denied

by community-syndication | Jun 10, 2006 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

A previous client of mine ran into this problem while installing the MSMQ adapter during a production push.  They were logged into the server using a Host instance login, which happened to be a local administrator.

The minimum security requirements for adding an adapter is that the user has to be in two BizTalk Server domain groups, the BizTalk Server Administrator and the SSO Affiliate Administrators groups.

In this case, the user was not in the SSO Affiliate Administrators group.  Logging in as a user that is in both of the aforementioned groups resolved the issue.