SharePoint

All I was doing was writing JavaScript Object Model (JSOM) to write data to a list in SharePoint 2013. It was fairly a simple program which uses HTML for data capture and SP.JS & JQuery to push the data to List. The program was successful with data being pushed to List. All of a sudden, the same program started throwing error. In catch block (to be specific, kind of QueryFailed function), I was displaying args.get_message() and args.get_stackTrace(). This is what I was getting as a response. args.get_message = "Unexpected response data from server" args.get_stackTrace = null After digging into internet, got a clue that it must be something related to noderunner.exe. When I checked in the server, several instances of this process were running and my RAM was almost full. Since I was not using Search, I stopped "SharePoint Server Search 15" and "SharePoint Search Host Controller" services. After this, RAM usage got reduced and my program started w...

At last, I've contributed my first ever TechNet Wiki article! I chose my blog post to make it as Wiki article so that people can conrtibute to alternate solutions if any. Going forward, will try to contribute more to SharePoint community.

In Project Server 2013 (or even 2010), when a PWA instance is created, Project Server provides some default Excel reports under Business Intelligence Center subsite. Basically these Excel workbooks contain data connection to ProjectWebApp Reports tables/views. If you click on any of these Excel and get an error something like "Data connection file used in workbook not in a trusted location", that means some configuration is yet to be done by your farm administrator. Basically, you need to configure Excel Services Settings and Secure Store Service Settings. These prerequisite steps are well documented in Technet and you can check it here .

There might be cases where you may have to create multiple instances of PWA in the same farm. In this architecture, each instance will reside in their respective web application and it will have it's own Project Server databases and content database. Let us see how can we create second instance in the existing farm.

SharePoint is not the solution for all business requirements, just like paracetamol does not cure all diseases.

The requirement is simple. List contains two columns. One column is a drop down with values "Approved" or "Rejected". Another column is Approved Date. If user selects drop down value as Approved, Approved Date should become mandatory. The end result looks like this: As you notice above, when the status is Approved and click on Save button, it prompts a custom message asking user to enter a date. This is achieved with absolutely no code! Here is how you can achieve it. Go to List Settings, navigate to Validation Settings. Under Formula, enter the below code: =IF(AND(Status="Approved",ISBLANK([Approved Date])),FALSE,TRUE) Here Status and Approved Date are column names. Under User Message field, enter any validation text. In my case, it is "If Status is Approved, Approval Date cannot be blank.". Click Save. Now, test this code by entering a new value or changing an existing value. Similarly, one can build complex formula to put c...

Sometimes I wonder if InfoPath can be used in a scalable solution. Though I have searched in web for any use cases, I've not seen examples citing InfoPath being used in a scalable deployment. Recently, I too faced a challenge, posted the problem in MSDN forum , but didn't get any solution and then came up with "workaround" to resolve the matter. Considering this could be one of the cases which peple often encounter, I thought of detailing the information in this post. Scenario: 1. Version: SharePoint 2010 and InfoPath 2010. 2. Design an InfoPath form (browser based) and publish it as Farm administrator approved template. 3. Activate this form in a site collection. 4. Add the above form as content type in a document library. 5. Now, it is available for user to fill up the form and save. ----At this point, user has saved the form---- 6. There is a change request for InfoPath form, so go ahead and change the design. 7. Publish again as before. 8. Notice tha...