SharePoint Tips

Tip #104: Updating SharePoint 2010 User Information

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:26:40 GMT

When you rename the user in Active Directly you might find that the old name is still resolving in People Picker when granting that user permissions. This is happening because user's entries for granted permissions are stored in a hidden “User Information List” located at http://<SiteCollectionUrl>/_catalogs/users/detail.aspx. And if the same user was added before his/her name wont be updated with the new changes from AD (even after running a full or incremental import via UPS).

In order to update the users in that list consider using a following powershell script http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AutomatingSharePoint/~3/ueik7IMLEVY/

Tip #103: First visit of authenticated user might cause performance issue

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:55:16 GMT

"When an authenticated user, whom has never visited a site collection, first visits a site there are a number of tables within the Content database which must be updated". This process might be very expensive and affect the overal performance of the SQL Server for the large farm. It is recommeded to prepopulate the user's table using SPWeb.EnsureUser() API.

More details about this tip can be found in the following article http://todd-carter.com/post/2011/09/20/Introduce-Users-Into-the-UserInfo-Table.aspx

Summary of Rational Guide to Multi Tenancy with SharePoint 2010

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:11:59 GMT

SharePoint 2010 enables delivery of hosting environments based on multi-tenancy functionality of SharePoint. However, multi-tenancy has its own limitation and creating multi-tenant farms should be based on the deliberate decision when all pros and cons are carefully evaluated.

There are a few resources of how to configure the multi-tenancy SharePoint 2010 farm, but I consider the following one the best Rational Guide to Multi Tenancy with SharePoint 2010. It’s a quite large reading with several additional resources that will take hours to read.

In this post I just want to summarise the key design considerations for these who are planning multi-tenancy farm.

Not all Service Applications are tenant-aware
do not store tenant data (and do not support partitioning) - Excel, Access, Visio, Work Viewing, State and PowerPoint Service Applications
could not be partitioned - Usage And Heath, Web Analytics, PerformancePoint, FAST for SharePoint
web.config is shared for all tenants in Web Application
Configuration can be done via PowerShell only
Provisioning can be done only in specific order, otherwise information could be shared across tenants
All custom development should be Sandboxed
Self Service Site Creation is required to allow tenants to create sites, however it is scoped by Web Application and all tenants will have this on
Cannot backup/upgrade on a per tenant basis, because more that one tenant can be stored in content database (constraining tenant to specific content DB removes ability to use Tenant Administrator site to create new SC and impact ability to use MySites)
Too many managed paths create performance implications (the magic number, aka software boundary, for managed paths per Web Application is 20). Consider using host named site collections for large number of tenants
AD Directory Services are required to store users (linked Subscriptions and Organization Units), because people picker and user profile impart are hooked up to OUs
Not all SharePoint 2010 features are feature pack aware

Tip #102: SharePoint database log shipping support

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:53:49 GMT

One of the approaches to provide high availability of SharePoint 2010 is using Log Shipping for service databases. However, SharePoint 2010 does not support log shipping for all databases. Such databases as:

Managed Metadata DB
Application Register DB

are not supported for log shipping, so you need to consider this in your availability/disaster recovery scenarios.

Source

Tip #101: How to optimize deployment of multiple WSPs

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:26:27 GMT

In the highly customized SharePoint solution, you might end up with a large number of WSP packages (10-15 for example) that are deployed as separate packages. There is nothing wrong with such approach for a production deployment, but deploying number of WSP again and again for debuging/testing in a development environment might be cumbersome (regardless if they are visible or hidden features).

Such behavior is specific for WSP deployment, when SharePoint recycles application pools during deployment. In such situation, deployment of 10-15 packages is a time consuming process. This behavior can be improved by adding "ResetWebServer="FALSE" to the solution manifest, preventing IIS pool recycling. However, it won't work for upgrade scenarios (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa544500.aspx).

To improve the deployment time of multiple WSP packages you could use "container" approach, packaging all WSPs in one single package to deploy it once, decreasing deployment time significantly.

For example, create a solution with 5 projects - three webpart projects, one list definition and one workflow project. Then, create empty SharePoint project (named "MyProduct") that will serve as "container". Navigated to Package.package, and add there the solution items we created before :

In result, only one WSP will be generated will all projects inside.

Tip #100: Why to document SharePoint 2010 Configuration?

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Mon, 02 May 2011 06:09:18 GMT

SharePoint 2010 provides some support for the Farm Configuration restoration using "Configuration Only" option http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee428326.aspx. However, the limitation of this approach is that not all configuration settings are backed up and can be restored. For example, the following settings cannot be backed up as a part of config-only backup.

Alternative Access Mapping (AAM)
Environment specific settings (IP addresses, machine names)
Service Applications

Actually, SharePoint 2010 Farm Configuration cannot be backed up and restored on 100% in automatic mode, due to site orpants and specific environment settings (http://www.benjaminathawes.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=10) and that is why your need to document Farm Configuration.

The following resources describes the list of items to document:

Tip #99: Office365 AD Synchronization cannot be cancelled

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:22:05 GMT

Activating AD synchronization should be considered a long-term commitment to coexistence. You cannot currently deactivate directory synchronization. Once you have activated directory synchronization, you can only edit synchronized objects using on-premises applications.

Source

Tip #98: Preventing DLL removal during a WSP solution uninstallation/retraction

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:25:17 GMT

"If you are deploying DLL through particular WSP, in that case it will be removed when you retract that solution. For this, you can directly deploy DLL into GAC/create separate WSP for deployment of this DLL. In that, whenever you retract other solution, it will not be removed from the GAC" by Amit.AK.Kumar

Source

Tip #97: WSDL is not available by default for ASMX Web Services deployed to _VTI_BIN

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:00:55 GMT

Some SharePoint solution might require creating custom ASMX Web Services that operates within the context of SharePoint 2010, and there is a good description of how to create and deploy ASMX Web Service for SharePoint http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms464040.aspx.

However, after Web Service is built and deployed to _vti_bin folder you might experience one issue that <service>.asmx/?WSDL returns "<404> Page not found" error. This error is only specific to the _vti_bin folder, and service returns ?WSLD description if deployed to other folders (for example to _layouts).

The fix is adding "<protocols><add name="Documentation"/></protocols>" to the WebServices element of web.config of webservice.

Tip #96: Active Directory Synchronization limitation for Office 365

laflour@gmail.com (Michael Nemtsev) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:14:32 GMT

Companies with users in local Active Directory environments who is considering using Microsoft Office 365 Beta for enterprises can use "Directory Synchronization Tool" to sync AD users. Using this tool, service administrators can keep Office 365 users, contacts, and groups updated with changes made in the local Active Directory.

However, this tool has a few limitations:

Directory synchronization to create users in Office 365, then disabling directory synchronization.
Multiple on-premises forests
Scoping or filtering (that is, limiting to a domain, organizational unit, or other container or group)
Synchronizing more that 10,000 objects (Contact MS Support in this case)

Source