Category Archives: SharePoint - Page 9

Custom 404 error page in SharePoint

Posted by on September 16, 2007 No comments

Last week, I was looking for some info on our portal. I used a bookmark that I created, to quickly access the team site I was looking for, but all I got was: 404 file not found. Afterwards, I found out that somebody reorganised the portal and moved the site to another URL.

Two reflections on this:

  • Should you really delete sites in a SharePoint portal? Should you not at least leave a web part page with a message that the information moved to another location?
    This is a common practice in web content management (redirect pages, even better!), why not in a SharePoint portal?
  • Is there a way to have a “friendly” 404 error page? I found out there is a way to have custom error pages, but it is not a very easy procedure to perform, as it even involves some Visual Studio: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941329
    If you are looking for inspiration on what should be on your custom error page, have a look at http://www.theinternetdigest.net/archive/custom-error-pages.html

Content Types – end user experience

Posted by on September 1, 2007 No comments

I tried to figure out on our portal how the Content Types and their corresponding templates behave, when using Office 2003 and Office 2007. There are 2 main factors that determine the behaviour when a user selects a content type from the “New” button in a document library: the file format of the template and the version of the Office client:

  File format: 2003 File format: 2007
Client: Office 2003 - client app opens with document based on template- user saves the document- user needs to select the correct content type- user needs to fill in the correct metadata - not supported
Client: Office 2007 - client app opens new document based on template- user saves the document- user needs to select the correct content type- user needs to fill in the correct metadata via the document information panel, if metadata is required. Otherwise: NO metadata!(*) - client app opens new document based on template- document information pannel shows metadata immediately after opening the document- user can fill in metadata in dip and save the doc in one move

contenttypes.png

(*) You can optimise this via the document information panel settings of the content type: check Always show Document Information Panel on document open and initial save for this content type.

Conclusion is that the user experience is only optimal when using Office 2007 with templates in the Office 2007 format (or what did you expect…)

 Note: Interesting to know that the “Content type” is stored IN the properties of a document template file. If you use a document template file with such information as a template for an OTHER content type, things get very confusing, as MOSS will still prompt you for the metadata attached to the OLD content type!

A gold mine, not a coal mine

Posted by on August 30, 2007 No comments

I came across an interesting article that discusses the results of a survey about the satisfaction of business users with their company intranet. As a SharePoint site owner, it is good to have a look a the top 5 of things people want on their intranet:

  1. people information
  2. procedures, policies…
  3. forms
  4. employee benefits
  5. organisation news

Also interesting is the list of improvements:

  1. better content organisation
  2. easier to find information
  3. better search
  4. clear intranet strategy
  5. getting rid of outdated content

If you keep these in mind, you make your intranet a gold mine, not a coal mine.

References:
http://www.6minutes.be/NL/Artikel.aspx?ArtikelID=7910&RubriekID=35

http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/la/mcgovern_intranet_survey.pdf

Custom activities in SharePoint Designer

Posted by on August 27, 2007 No comments

SharePoint Designer is a great tool for developing workflows, because it brings the workflow development to the business owner, power user or information manager. You can quickly create a simple workflow without having to go through a often painful development process.

There are some limitations, of course. On a recent project, I really missed an action that would set the security of an item in a list, so that e.g. users could only see the documents they submitted.

Google to the rescue: this blog post explains how a developer could create a custom activity and make it available to the SharePoint designer users. Best of both worlds, isn’t it? Ease of use and extensibility?

Reference: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/CustomActivity.asp

Saving energy one search at a time

Posted by on August 12, 2007 No comments

Did you ever think about the huge amount of electric power all our computers consume? Pierre showed me this link:

http://blackle.com

Makes you think, doesn’t it?