Disqus - Latest Comments for Randy_Williams

Re: 5 Reasons Basic Install Also Known As Stand Alone Install Including Limited SQL Express For SharePoint Sucks! - SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land

Randy_Williams — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:20:18 -0000

Thanks for pointing this out Joel. In our SharePoint classes, we pose the same question, and nowadays we only get a few. We used to get a lot more, so the messages seems to be getting through. "Advanced, Complete is the only way to go."

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 4 of 8

jabailo — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:28:34 -0000

Thanks! I found this:

http://skew.org/xml/stylesheets/url-encode/url-...

An XSLT 1.0 template for url encode.

(Painful is right!)

I'm wondering if I can just add a reference to this xsl page on top of what Sharepoint already uses (?) so that I get access to the method/template...

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 4 of 8

jabailo — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:24:34 -0000

What are my methods for maintaining state then?

A producer/consumer with an XML store?

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 4 of 8

Randy_Williams — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:39:20 -0000

What you have done seems like the best approach. Using the BDC web parts (and almost every other OOB web part), you cannot establish connections with web parts on a different page.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 4 of 8

Randy_Williams — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:37:10 -0000

I'm pretty certain there is no support for XSLT 2.0 functions. In cases like this, I have written a custom template and execute using the <xsl:call-template>. I know it's painful, but I know of no other workaround.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 6 of 8

Randy_Williams — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:19:32 -0000

Hi,

My guess is that there is a formatting problem with the string field that is being returned from the database. I might suggest converting it to a date format from the database side which will ensure that .NET layer that BDC uses can properly interpret it. For Microsoft SQL Server, the syntax would be like this:

select cast (datestring as datetime) from table

Again, depending on the format, you may need to manipulate to get it into a mm/dd/yyyy (or dd/mm/yyyy depending on your region). The T-SQL Substring function works well for tasks like this.

If this is not it, I would suggest turning on verbose logging, doing the import and trying to see where the problem is occurring. Hope this helps.

Re: Getting started with SharePoint programming: Simplifying SharePoint debugging by creating the troubleshooting toolbox

mechatronix — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:00:19 -0000

Thanks Randy, you made my day :)

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 1 of 8

Randy_Williams — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:11:42 -0000

If both 01 and 02 servers are part of the same farm as web front ends (WFE), there's no need to transfer web parts between the servers. This is handled automatically (although I do assume that you have some type of network load-balancer in place) since both servers share the same configuration and content. You will want to make sure both servers can connect to the SQL Server for the BDC web parts to render. You might find this other blog post I wrote helpful when troubleshooting connections to SQL Server: http://www.synergyonline.com/blog/blog-moss/Lis...

Re: Getting started with SharePoint programming: Simplifying SharePoint debugging by creating the troubleshooting toolbox

Randy_Williams — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:06:40 -0000

Well written Ayman. I've read scattered references to these areas in different places, but yours is the best consolidated description of what can really help what's otherwise a frustrating experience for SP developers.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 1 of 8

jabailo — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:47:36 -0000

That makes it clear, thank you!

I'm working on a farm that has two web servers. The 01 server doesn't have 1433 and the 02 server does. I set up my web parts BDC list page on 01. I am guessing then that I need to build on the 02 server...wonder if there's an easy way to transfer my web parts page to run via the 02 server (?)

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 1 of 8

Randy_Williams — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:08:38 -0000

Hi,

If you're using TCP/IP sockets as your network protocol for SQL Server, then you will need to make sure that your web server can deliver TCP 1433 (and 1434, I think) packets to SQL. In this way, your SharePoint web server (or web front end as we say) is the client to SQL Server. Hope this helps answer.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 1 of 8

markus — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:17:09 -0000

HI All,
I have created a webpart which has 3 fields. One of the field will be provided by a BDC which has already created. Can you show me how to add a BDC into a webpart programmatically.

Thanks,
Markus

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 4 of 8

Randy_Williams — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:31:52 -0000

Hi Ishak. Sorry for the delayed response. I do not know of any way to easily implement grouping like what you would find within a view for a list. You could technically implement this in the custom XSLT for the business data list web part, but this would take some knowhow of the XSLT language.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 4 of 8

dave — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:50:18 -0000

Great stuff Randy, much appreciated. I've just spent the past couple hours following along from 1 to 4 and it's all making sense to me now.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 4 of 8

Randy_Williams — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 14:40:03 -0000

Hi Ed,

I am not planning on doing this. There is a sample ADF that Microsoft provides that will allow you to connect to SAP Web services. If you install the MOSS SDK, you can find it in this folder: C:\Program Files\2007 Office System Developer Resources\Samples\Business Data Catalog\WebService Samples\SAP 6.0 WebService.

Hops this helps.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 1 of 8

Randy_Williams — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:33:01 -0000

Hi Fred,

Article 2 has been written already and should be published shortly. I think I provide pretty good guidance on how both a stored procedure and an ad hoc select statement would work in the context of a finder/specific finder/IdEnumerator methods. Let me know what you think when it comes out. If I missed something, let me know, and I'll try to fill it in.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 1 of 8

Randy_Williams — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:37:09 -0000

Hi Steve,

I considered mentioning MashPoint here, but opted to keep it out. Thanks for putting in a plug for it. :)