Is it too much to ask to have relative paths in InfoPath forms?

I was working on something recently to make the job in one of our departments easier.  Instead of using a word document and filling out everything manually, (which can lead to errors) I wanted to create a form using InfoPath that would allow the members of this department to select items rather than manually fill in values.  I did manage to get it working… once.  It seems that any time I recreate a site template, or even a document library using this form, I need to rebuild the data connections for the form, which means that I also have to rebuild all of the relationships in the form as well.  All because InfoPath isn’t able to use relative paths for any of it’s data sources. 

Adding printers from SharePoint

Had an interesting case come up recently.  My manager wanted a way for our users to be able to easily add our network printers to their computers.  Apparently going to \\printerserver\printer01\ is too much of a challenge for our end users.  Initially you would think that it would be simple, and that you just create a list with a hyperlink column and add the UNC path to your printer for the link and away you go.  The problem with that is, when you click on the link, somehow a magical file:/// gets added so that your link now looks like file:///\\printerserver\printer01\ which is of course useless.  An associate of mine found an article online where the solution is to create a batch file that has the link.  This of course requires a user to choose to either “save” or “run” the file.  If they can’t figure out how to get there from the UNC path given to them, chances are they aren’t going to get the batch file right either.  There is hope however, and I have figured something out that so far works for us, and will hopefully work for you too.

Do employers know the difference between SharePoint Administrators and SharePoint Developers? Is there a difference?

The job market lately has had me a little concerned for the stability of my position where I work as a SharePoint Administrator.  (I also handle other IT duties, but SharePoint is my bread and butter.)  Because of the job market, I decided that I would look and see what other opportunities were out there.  I noticed something disturbing.  Firstly, there are a lot more positions for Developers than there are for Administrators.  That’s not so disturbing in itself, but when you look at the job descriptions for each, there are striking similarities.  Go ahead and check it out for yourself.  Go to one of the top job search engines like career builder or monster, and enter in “SharePoint Administrator” for a job search and look at some of the requirements of the positions.  Now do the same thing with “SharePoint Developer.”  The thing that I have noticed is that for almost all of those positions listed, it seems that the companies have no idea what they actually need.  I think that Microsoft, or some of the more well known SharePoint genius-gurus, should lay out specifically what the difference is between an admin and a developer for the benefit of these companies so that they can ask for the appropriate qualifications for the position they are trying to fill.

Do you think Autodesk got it right this time? Yeah, me neither.

Well, I found out from our company’s CAD Support lead that Autodesk has it’s 2010 versions out now.  I figured if there was a chance that they fixed the white screen issue in Internet Explorer, maybe this was it.  I’m downloading the file now and I’m going to install it and let you know.  I’ll be back after the jump.

Tweaking "Copy List item" in SharePoint Designer workflow.

I am a huge fan of the custom workflow activities for SharePoint designer that is on codeplex.  I use an abundance of those features, all of which seem to be a shortcoming from Microsoft’s default deployment of SharePoint.  As big of a fan as I am, there are however a few things where they went completely overboard, and made it difficult for a pedestrian user like myself to figure out the ins and outs.  One of the things that I have an issue with is all of the “Copy List Item” functionality.  Microsoft came up short and the guys at codeplex went off the deep end.  Granted, I like having the ability to copy an item to another subsite, site collection, domain, or zip code by using the URL.  I’ve used it in some of my previous posts, like this one.  Sometimes though, I prefer some simpler functionality. 

Out of the Box workflows don’t work once completed?

Well here’s a stumper.  This was first noticed on our development server.  I had set up a document library with the routing workflow feature activated.  And then ran the collect feedback workflow on a document I had uploaded.  It worked great, sending e-mails, notifying users an all.  Once it was completed, however, trouble began.

Why are dates so hard to work with in SharePoint?

It seems that Microsoft may have missed one of the biggest issues that afflicts any content management system.  While they do automatically calculate the date that an item was created (or uploaded, as the case may be), and they also let you know when the last time the file was edited, and who touched it, there are some other calculations that they don’t handle well, if at all.  One of the culprits is “Today.”  While there are workarounds that will let you add the “Today” value to a calculated column, there really isn’t much use to it since it won’t calculate on the fly, but only when an item is “touched.”  So, that pretty much makes it nothing more than a fancy “Modified” column.  And that’s pretty much useless.  Well, we have a help desk site at our company and my manager wanted me to create a report for the number of service tickets that we close per month, and per quarter.  Here’s where the fun really begins.

Remove “Common Tasks” from Explorer view.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written.  We have been very busy here with a network infrastructure upgrade that has been very demanding. We also have an office move coming up so it might be a bit before I write again.  I haven’t gone away though. 

We ran into an issue recently where our external users needed to be able to download multiple files at once. (I don’t know why, but our internal users demanded it.)  After thinking about it for a bit, It occurred to me that the explorer view may be exactly what they need.  So I opened up our site, and checked to see if it would work for a Forms based user.  Not initially, but after turning on client integration in Central Admin, our FBA users could access the Explorer view.  I checked what it looked like for our internal users and I ran into a problem…

Foiled again! DWGTrueView’s evil ways.

Well damn it all to hell! I thought I had a viable fix working.  Nope.  It turns out that those registry edits I had mentioned don’t do a damned bit of good when it comes to DWGTrueView trying to jack with Internet Explorer. Read on for the latest with that mess.  (I’m seriously contemplating finding out where Autodesk’s home offices are located and calling in a bomb threat!)

Remove “overwrite current minor version” in publishing libraries.

Building off of my post from the other day about removing the “discard checkout” option, I have also figured out how to remove the “overwrite current minor version” option in publishing document libraries.  I have now forced any of my users to keep track of all of their edits, which will prevent any nonsense from taking place.  It does seem a little harsh I know, but I look at it like locking your car doors.  It keeps the honest people honest, and removes any temptation to do something that they shouldn’t, especially since there will now be a record of any change made.