SharePoint 2007 SSP User Profile Import Connections Limitations

The organisation I am working for at the moment has an Active Directory set up of Users and Contacts.

Running a ldifde query to output all Users and Contacts (below) provides me a list of 936 items.

ldifde -f usersindomain.csv -r "(&(objectCategory=Person)(|(objectClass=User)(objectClass=Contact)))"

If I use this query within the Import Connection in the SSP in Central Administration .

When I start a full import I only receive 894 user profiles.

This coincides with if I run, although I only get 892.

ldifde -f usersindomain.csv -r "(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User))"

So it looks like it is just ignoring the Contact's. Running:

ldifde -f usersindomain.csv -r "(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User))"

...returns 44 items. 892 + 44 = 936 which makes sense, but who are the other 2 User Profiles being imported?

Looking at the User Profile Crawl Log I receive errors:

So basically it appears that it cannot support this objectClass.

This is a shame because I am really pushing our organisation to use Out of the Box functionality as much as possible for various reasons. Customising this would require managing the Contacts in Active Directory using the API and maintaining that they stay in sync with the the User Profiles Repository within SharePoint. This means designing, developing, testing and maintaining yet another application on top of the SharePoint platform.

My understanding of Business Data Catalogue (BDC) functionality is that it can only extend on a base subset of profile data. So you can crawl in from Active Directory the Users and if there are properties stored about that User in another repository outside of Active Directory, you can match using an identifier and update the property in the User Profile.
It cannot create "Users" that exist in the secondary repository mapped by BDC that are not in Active Directory, it's purely an extension.

If anyone knows a solution for this please feel free to message me on Facebook.

Published: 4/23/2008 6:37 PM | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

My Site Creation Timeouts and managing MOSS's mess

I’ve been working in my demo VM again today and had an issue where the creation of a MySite was timing out. Interestingly it’s taken ages for it to create one (about 2 minutes)! I’ve allocated 3Gb RAM to the VM and it’s still taking too long to demo how ‘slick’ this feature is in a presentation.

The MySite doesn't come up when I try and visit it so i've tried to delete it and go again. I used stsadmin to delete the MySite:

“stsadm -o deletesite -url http://awhsvsp01:2222/personal/david”

and it came back stating:

“There is no top-level Web site named “http://awhsvsp01:2222/personal/david”.”

When I hit this url from the user or administrator page I get this rendered page:

“HTTP/1.1 404 Connection: close Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 06:37:17 GMT Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices: 12.0.0.4518”

I found this article which basically highlights the same thing I found too! So it doesn’t completely clean it up, I'm wondering how much more of this transactional type stuff it falls over on. Further rants here : rant 1 , rant 2

On the bright side, I found a nice little article on storing profile pictures in Active Directory so that when they do create their MySite it takes that photo as default and gives administrators control over their photo.

Here’s a good article on customising the MySite template also.

I found a quick reference to stsadmin, but there are plenty others out there.

Handy hint

I also found adding the below to your path makes it easier to fire off stsadmin:

“C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN”

Published: 9/17/2007 5:47 AM | 1 Comment | 12 Links to this post

Setting up MOSS My Sites for a Enterprise 2.0 presentation

Managing Remote Desktop on Windows Server 2003

I have been working more on my demo VM and wanted to use Remote Desktop to demonstrate various users in various roles. By default Windows 2003 is pretty well locked down and I found this great article from Mitch Tulloch which explains what you have to do.

Terminal Services Licensing

I noticed that there is a limit of 2 connections by default and I can install Terminal Services Licensing to get round this, but have not yet got round to fixing this up. I'm not quite sure what is involved on a development MSDN license.

Active Directory & SharePoint Security

Along with this, I had to set up Active Directory and some groups which I could then set up some scenarios. I was reading Joel Olsen's article on Security on the best way of managing AD groups with SharePoint groups. It has some great points here especially when you are thinking of how to configure this for production and the easiest way of managing this across the Enterprise.

MySites

Part of the demonstration is a MySites based personalisation scenario to show Enterprise Social Networking in SharePoint. There isn't much out there in terms of MySite configuration but I found a Activating MySite Creation by Amanda which shows you what you have to check from a default MOSS install to get it so Users can create their MySites.

Microsoft SharePoint & the Enterprise

While I've brought up Enterprise 2.0, there's also a great post discussing whether SharePoint/Microsoft will be the Facebook of the Enterprise. This has been followed up by an awesome post by Mike. I will be doing a presentation at the Perth User Group on Tuesday on Using SharePoint to implement Enterprise 2.0. Feel free to come along it's at Microsoft HQ in QV1 after 5.

InfoWorld also had a article on whether Microsoft will change it's ways with the Office 2007 and go into direct competition with Google Apps. Cap Gemini are going into partnership with Google to sell the Enterprise edition so it'll be interesting to see whether Microsoft will move into this space with it's Live suite for the Enterprise space.

Published: 9/14/2007 11:38 PM | 4 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Setting up My Calendar on MOSS2007

I have been creating a demo VM to run some scenarios against and wanted to demonstrate the Outlook Web Access (OWA) Web Part capabilities. I installed MOSS 2007 and had it all running with POP3 and then installed Exchange 2003.

I noticed that the OWA wasn’t working in the Exchange System Manager ‘Servers|<server name>|Protocols|HTTP|Exchange Virtual Server’ and instructed me to go to IIS to configure the Port etc. The ‘Default Web Site’ was Stopped because it was sharing the same point as the main MOSS2007 web site. I changed the port number to an unused one and started the web site and this then allowed me to access OWA.

My Calendar Web Part Settings Screen shot

Configuring the Web Part needed a few modifications. I had to set the Mail server address to ‘http://<server name>:81/exchange’ (e.g. ‘http://awhsvsp01:81/exchange’) and the Mailbox to ‘<user name>’ (e.g. ‘Paul’).

It appears to be just showing the OWA in a IFRAME which obviously won’t please the Acessibility gurus of the world. What is does allow though is a quick view of OWA within each users My Site.

The My Mail Folder Web Part is also quite neat as it allows users to point to a specific folder within their outlook. This could be very handy when people are using common public folders for email on a project and can simply add this web part to see all the latest relevant email conversations.

Unfortunately there is no filters, for example to filter the My Tasks by category or priority etc. and the same for My Calendar. These filtered views would be more handy for custom workspace Web Part scenarios.

Published: 9/14/2007 11:15 PM | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Defining a Sharepoint group for a web part

Once you've installed MOSS 2007 you'll notice there are heaps of web parts and making it easier for Portal Admins to find the web part to add can be made easier by "idiot-proof" naming and also grouping the web parts into sections.

C-Dog has a great article on this which also covers how to automate what group a web part gets added to by using features and editing the .webpart manifest file. It also covers Code Access Security for web parts too and how to wrap this up and deploy it.

Published: 8/20/2007 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Application Development in Sharepoint

I've been looking at all the ways that you can actually create new functionality over than the base functionality of Sharepoint. Most of this is around actually displaying the content in a portal environment on a public facing web site in a way that external users are used to.

Internal users of the portal will be comfortable with the Sharepoint look and feel and branding is not at the top of the priority list on portals. Public presence is all about branding and content and rendering sharepoint pages takes away from the branding of the site. There are plenty of ways to completely control the rendering of the site and Chris Johnson's post does a great job of explaining the pros and cons of both.

This issue actually came up at the Perth Sharepoint User Group on Tuesday and pretty much every there agreed that the best way to do this was to write custom web parts and take full control. Sezai from Vivid Group will be presenting at next months meeting and will focus on some of these issues so I'm looking forward to his approach to this.

Published: 7/19/2007 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

APAC Sharepoint Conference

I'm flying over to Sydney for the APAC Sharepoint Conference at the Hilton on 15th and 16th May. Will be my first trip to Sydney which is pretty poor form being as I've been living in Perth for over 4 years!

I am really looking forward to meeting people who are also as passionate about Sharepoint as I am at the moment. It will be a great way to learn more about the product suite which I've mainly learnt so far from blogs and articles on the Internet. Waiting for all the books to be released in Australia that are coming in June - Sep according to Boffins in Perth.

So I'm sightseeing Monday and then conference for next two days but wanted to taste the nightlife on Tuesday night...I'm sure they'll be a few social butterflies at the conference who want to paint the town red!

Published: 5/10/2007 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Sharepoint 2007 cost

Just found this article which shows that a 1000 user license approx. is about AUD$11,000 and is AUD$107,000 for Internet access which doesn't need CALs. Pretty competitive against Hummingbird DM/RedDot and Interwoven Worksite/Teamsite combinations. Be interesting to see how the market picks up in Perth on this stuff and how soon. This Microsoft page covers what you need to buy product set wise.

Published: 11/27/2006 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Sharepoint 2007 B2TR upgrade error

I followed Amanda's instructions to the letter and got results as described, but for some reason got this error on Step 11!

"Windows could not start the Office Sharepoint Server Search on Local Computer. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor, and refer to service-specific error code -2147467262."

Oh yeah..."-2147467262"...I remember that one! Where do they come up with these codes?!? [:@] Anyway, I checked the System Event Log and found this little gem:

"Job 'Distribution List Import Job' failed after 3 tries and 180 second(s). Will not try again.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp."

I tried starting it again and got this:

"Job 'Distribution List Import Job' failed. It will be re-tried again in 60 second(s).

Reason: Failed to obtain crawl status.

Techinal Details:
Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileException: Failed to obtain crawl status.
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.SRPSite.IsImportInProgress(String contentSourceName)
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileConfigManager.IsProfileImportInProgress()
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileConfigManager.IsImportInProgress()
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.DLImportJob.Execute()
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.JobHandler.Execute(Object state, Boolean timedOut)

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp."

and again:
"Starting up database 'SharedServices1_Search_DB_6550d16c-23b6-493c-a92c-21c810deeed4'.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp."

"Job 'Distribution List Import Job' failed. It will be re-tried again in 60 second(s).

Reason: Failed to obtain crawl status.

Techinal Details:
Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileException: Failed to obtain crawl status.
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.SRPSite.IsImportInProgress(String contentSourceName)
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileConfigManager.IsProfileImportInProgress()
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileConfigManager.IsImportInProgress()
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.DLImportJob.Execute()
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.JobHandler.Execute(Object state, Boolean timedOut)

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp."

and then it appears to loop round these errors.

I tried starting up the Sharepoint Home and first time it came up with an error, but after I did the bits above it seemed to then work ok.

I tried starting up the Sharepoint 3.0 Central Administration and that appears to come up fine. I checked the version in Site Settings and it's Version 12.0.0.4407. So all seems well....the rest of Step 11 failed when I tried to Start the Search Service in the Operations page. I get:

"The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion"

Is this a "Microsoft timely fashion"?

Anyway, the second time I tried to start it it worked. Seems like everything takes two goes! [:D]

Honestly, I'm really impressed with the new Sharepoint 2007, as with any product, especially in Beta I expect problems. From experience with RedDot, Hummingbird, M$ MCMS, M$ TFS etc. It's the joys of being in the software business!

Published: 9/19/2006 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Sharepoint 2007 B2TR

Finally got round to downloading the new B2TR patches for MOSS and Office client. An awesome set of screenshots for installing WSS 2007 B2TR...very impressed, must have taken a while...but every man and his dog will be linking to it...good way of getting traffic ;-)

From reading blogs over the last week, there appears to be a lot of new stuff in there. Be good to have a good look round it all.

Published: 9/18/2006 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

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