Customize Newform.aspx using InfoPath

Last week I was assigned to customize a list page. Here are the steps and some issues I faced during this assignment.

Design / Customization phase:

• Open SharePoint site
• Navigate to List
• Select on the List and then click customize form (it by default shows InfoPath icon)

• This will open the NewForm.aspx page in InfoPath
• Make necessary changes and publish / quick publish it to SharePoint
• By default it publishes to the same list. (to change the default quick publish option we have to dig hard and change some codes inside that form xml. I will discuss on it later)
• That’s it now you have customized InfoPath form loaded to your list

Validation phase:

• Now where to check this is the same customized form you published via InfoPath?
• From Ribbon select Item > New Item

• This should open up a customized form.
• To reconfirm it, open this list in SPD or in explorer view
• Now go to Forms folder and confirm Newfs.aspx page resides there

Known issue / troubleshooting phase:

• I noticed this issue most of the times when we customize list newform it only updated in Ribbon part, in other words it only updates content type filed.
• I faced an issue with add new item option which we generally find below all items

When I clicked on it, I found the old / original newform.aspx page opening.

Whats new in SharePoint Designer 2010 (and whats missing)

SharePoint Designer is a single tool that helps you do so much more with the SharePoint, with little or no coding. 

In the Share point designer 2010 there have been some enhancements and as an Administrator its important to understand these enhancements.

Features such as Contributor settings, Database Interface Wizards, Site Publish, Site Backup and Restore are no longer available in the Designer 2010. 


Additionally SharePoint designer offers new capabilities to create web part pages, master pages, lists and workflows, setting permissions for individual users; and saving and deleting site templates. 

Also you can extend share-point 2010 ribbon using standard Development APIs to fulfill application & corporate requirements using SharePoint designer 2010 you can customize both Ribbon and drop down lists to display site lists, available webparts, workflows, or other information as needed.

refer the link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179083.aspx to get more information on this part. 

State service error message

SharePoint makes it easy to modify your list input forms using the new design the form page in InfoPath 2010 option

You can just open your list and click Customize form button in ribbon.

But sometimes while publishing the form you may see the error message as

"The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to Misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint state service. For more information contact your server administrator" 

one possible cause of this error could be that the SharePoint 2010 farm was created manually without running the PS configuration wizard.

To configure the SharePoint 2010 state service using the PowerShell try the following:

1. open your Central Administration in the Browser.
2. On task bar, click Start, select Administrative tools and then windows PowerShell modules, this will launch PowerShell and load all required modules.
3. In windows PowerShell window create an application by typing this command.
 
   $serviceapp =New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name "State Service"

4. Associate a Database with this application

New- SPStateServiceDatabase -Name "StateServiceDatabase" -ServiceApplication $serviceapp

5. Create a State Service Application Proxy and associate it with service application by typing the Following command

New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name "State Service" -ServiceApplication $serviceApp -DefaultProxyGroup.


This will create the State service Application in CA

next you need to check is that you application is associated with this state service application.

just go ahead and publish your InfoPath form, it should work now :)

Working with Large Lists in Sharepoint

So when we decided to move to Sharepoint 2010 every one was excited and so were the uses because as per the readings we can make larger lists (then what we already have) yes its never enough :) 

As they say SharePoint Lists supports Items upto 50 million  - During read operations. 

However the challenge has always been to make the data in the large list available for retrieval and display in timely and efficient manner.
Although the users can create as many items as they want the query operation shows down as the list grows in size. 

So what do poor administrators like you and me do ... 

Introducing our life saver : Resource Throttling

Resource Throttling is new with SharePoint 2010 and is set on site collections by default standard users are throttled when retrieving 5000 items from the list with a warning of 3000, these warnings can be changed using PowerShell.

the mechanics works like this:
if a user is pulling data with 4999 items the query runs all the data without any error.
however if the user or query tries to retrieve 5001 items an expensive query will be returned. 

so what we can do is we can use Central Admin to set a time frame when these expensive queries cannot be run for example a query cannot be run at some time frame like 9 to 6 and then later these query would yeild results. 

this can be done from Central admin>Application Management > Manage web application > select your application> General settings > Resource Throttling. 


hope this would help :) 

Create your SharePoint 2010 themes easy

Branding the site is something each organization is looking for and  even if I had my own personal site which I use to share stuff I would love it brand it ... throw in some colors add icons and images. 

So If you wanna quick brand your SharePoint website you can do so from the Inbuilt themes from:

Using the Interface:

1. Open SP site
2. Go to site actions > site settings 
3. under look and feel choose site theme
4. click select a color to change the color of a specific item.
5. choose theme from the list
6. click preview to view the site changes before publishing 
7. click apply

well wasn't that easy but if you want to make your own themes rather then the well defined ones before jumping into CSS  consider this option. 

Creating Themes with PowerPoint 2010

1. Open PowerPoint 
2. Create a new document but if you have an existing document that your organization uses then skip step 3.
3. Change the theme, you can do this also from the design tab of powerpoint choose the theme that defines your style, choose fonts and hyperlinks so on. 
4. Choose the color pallette for the site by clicking the Colors. 
5. Save the PowerPoint Document as MS powerpoint theme which is *.thmx
6. Now go back to your sharepoint site> upload this file under Galleries and Themes. 
7.  Keep / as destination. 
8. Then choose this new theme for your site from the about way. 

tadaaaa .. you have your custom theme for Sharepoint and did we even touch Designer or CSS ...no sir :)