Continue reading »]]> Okay, so you kept the Announcements list on your SharePoint home page. You’ve entered several announcements and indicated expirations from many – if not all – of them.

But they’re still on your home page. Why isn’t SharePoint removing them automatically?

Automatically tossing things to the Recycle Bin isn’t what SharePoint is designed to do. Unless you tell it. Here’s how.

1. Go the list’s page (from the home page, click the list’s title).
2. Click Settings/List Settings.
3. Near the bottom of the page, find the Views section and click the name of the view you wish to modify. Alternatively, you may click Create view to create a whole new one.
4. Verify or create a Name for the view. Verify or select the Columns in your view. And check the Sort settings, too.
5. The Filter section is where the magic occurs. The logic for your filter goes something like this: You want to show all announcements without expirations, and you want to show all announcements that haven’t expired yet. So the Filter settings should be as follows.

You might need to return to the home page and reset the view for the Announcement list web part. This only applies if you modified an existing view above, and that view was already being used by the web part on the home page.

Here’s how you do that in case you need a refresher.

1. On the title bar the Announcement web part, click the down arrow then click Modify Shared Web Part.
2. To the far right, find the web part’s settings. From the Selected View drop down menu, select the modified or new view (depending on what you did earlier). You will get a warning, but you probably don’t have anything to worry about. Click OK on that dialog box.
3. Click OK on the Web Part Settings panel.

Continue reading »]]> My current investigation is to discover the configuration differences that lead to these two different Site Actions menus.

Example 1

Example 2

Any commenters care to share?

UPDATE – September 20, 2011

The menu from Example 1 is accessed from the primary SharePoint site. The menu from Example 2 is accessed from a child site under the primary one.

Boy, don’t I feel dumb…

Continue reading »]]> A comprehensive team calendar is a very valuable tool on a SharePoint team site. But it can overwhelm the home page. A better implementation here is to show upcoming events for the next week or two.

Unfortunately, this functionality is not available out of the box.

You’ll need to create a new column and define a new view for the Team Calendar. The new column is required because you cannot create a view based on the Calendar’s built-in Start Date. I think it’s because the Start Date column isn’t a field that can be calculated. Why? I don’t know.

Here’s how to create the new column in the Calendar:

1. On the team site home page, click Site Actions.
2. Under Site Administration, click Content and structure.
3. Hover over the the site’s Calendar entry, click the down arrow, and click Edit Properties.
   
4. In the Columns section, click Create column.
5. In the Name and Type section, type a name in the Column name text box (for example Date for Home)
6. Click the Calculated radio button.
7. In Additional Column Settings section, type =[Start Time] in the Formulatext box.
   

   Click to Enlarge

8. For the data type, click the Date and Time radio button.
9. For the format, click the Date Only radio button.
10. Ensure that the check box for Add to default view is checked.
11. Click OK.

Congrats! You’ve created the column. Let’s create the view:

1. Go to your team site’s home page.
2. In the Lists section of the left navigation area, click Calendar.
3. On the Calendar page, click Settings from the toolbar area. Click Create View.
   
4. Click Standard View.
5. On the Create View: Calendar page, there are many settings. Scroll down to the Filter section.
6. Click the radio button for Show items only when the following is true.
7. Following my example, select Date for Home from the first drop down list.
8. Choose is greater than or equal to from the second drop down list.
9. In the text box, type [Today].
10. Click the And radio button.
11. Again, choose Date for Home from the drop down list.
12. Choose is less than or equal to from the next drop down list.
13. Type [Today]+7.
    
14. Click OK.

Three cheers! You’ve created the View. Now you need to configure the home page to show it.

1. Go to your team site’s home page.
2. To the far right on the Calendar Web Part, you should see a down arrow. Click that and click Modify Shared Web Part.
   

   Click to Enlarge

3. The entire page will become editable. Look to the far right of the Web page (you might need to scroll right). You should see the configuration panel. In the Selected View drop down list, click 1 Week Ahead (again following my original example).
4. When you select this, you might see a Message from webpage dialog box about disabling connections. Click OK because you don’t have any option, really.
5. Click OK in the Calendar configuration box.

The modified calendar should be visible.

It’s an involved process, but it’s worth it.

Continue reading »]]> The IT geeks that work with SharePoint are generally a friendly and helpful bunch. And from time to time, they partake in a bit of lager and ale enjoyment. So if you haven’t heard of SharePinters before, now you know they are good folks who like SharePoint and draft pints. Thus, they are SharePinters.

So I should fit in well.

Continue reading »]]>

I restarted Windows Server 2008 and then went to the SharePoint site. Instead of the comforting SharePoint home page, I got these six jarring words:

Cannot connect to the configuration database

Ugh.

It took me a while to figure one regrettable fact: It was my fault.

A while after installing Windows Server 2008 and then SharePoint 2007, I thought it would be a swell idea to rename the server to something easier for me to remember. I did just that and restarted the server. That’s when I ran into the trouble. The coincidence might have dawned on me quicker, but I had left and did other things in the real world before I returned to find I was in a predicament.

I read a few postings, and one gave me a hint that it was due to a name change and SQL Server would look in the old place. And hadn’t I changed the name earlier?

D’oh!

I changed the name back rather than try to figure out how to update the SQL instance. I’ll probably run into the solution someday in the future.

Moral of the story: The name of the server computer is important. Change it right after installation and never later!

Continue reading »]]> In a test environment inside a virtual machine, Internet Explorer’s Enhanced Security Configuration (ESC) is overkill. In a production environment, it would be vital.

Disabling ESC in Windows Server 2008 R2 is difficult. In fact, I couldn’t figure it out. During my investigations, though, I learned that Windows Server 2008 (non-R2), things are much simpler. So I wimped out. Shoot me.

1. Go to Start/Control Panel/Programs and Features
2. In Programs and Features, click Turn Windows features on or off (in the left navigation area). This will open Server Manager.
3. In Server Manager, look for Security Information section. In the set of links to the right, find and click Configure IE ESC.
4. In the dialog box, click the Off radio buttons for both Administrators and Users, then click OK.

Use Server Manager to configure ESC

Continue reading »]]>

When I went to activate Windows Server 2008 inside the virtual machine, I got an odd error.

Windows could not be activated.
Key management services (KMS) host could not be located in domain name system (DNS), please have your system adminstrator verify that a KMS is published correctly in DNS.

I’m not a Windows Server guru, so this didn’t make a lot of sense. So I’m thankful for search engines.

This knowledge base article saved my bacon:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929826