SharePoint

BizTalk 2010, BAM, SharePoint and the Default Application Pool Flag

Geordie — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:06:27 GMT

I have recently started to look at EDI communications through BizTalk. Part of the EDI features in BizTalk is the use of BAM to track messaging. Amongst the applications we currently have built in BizTalk we do some SharePoint communication. This is also a possible component to our EDI solution. We also have plans to move to BizTalk 2010 in the near future, so today I started to build my new BizTalk Dev machine.

I got a bit of a surprise when 2 parts of the required set had me setting a flag “Enable 32-bit applications” to opposite values.

First configuration: I was working the setup document available from Microsoft ‘Installing BizTalk Server 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2008.docx’.

On pg 13…
Enable Internet Information Services
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) provides a Web application infrastructure for many BizTalk Server features. BizTalk Server requires IIS for the following features:
• HTTP adapter
• SOAP adapter
• Windows SharePoint Services adapter
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption
• BAM Portal
To enable Internet Information Services 7.5
1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools and then click Server Manager.
2. ….Step by step instruction here
Note
BAM Portal runs only runs on a 32-bit mode. If you are installing IIS on a 64-bit machine then you must ensure that ASP.NET 2.0 is enabled on 32-bit mode. To do this, follow these steps:
1. On the taskbar, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. In the Connections pane, expand the server name, and then click Application Pools.
3. In the Actions pane, click Set Application Pool Defaults...
4. On the Application Pool Defaults dialog box, in Enable 32-bit applications, select True.

I set the Enable 32-bit applications flag as specified and continued with the install.

Second configuration: As mentioned we use SharePoint and to use the SharePoint adaptor we need to install the SharePoint Foundation 2010 or WSS3(SP2) components. After installation and configuration the SharePoint Sites where inaccessible and returned a HTTP error 503 ‘Site unavailable’ message. The application pools for the SharePoint components were stopped each time I tried to access the SharePoint sites. After a bit of searching I found that to get the site to work I needed to set the ‘Enable 32-bit applications, to False’.

Resolution: I was able to resolve the issue by setting the default application Pool’s Enable 32-bit applications to true as described in the text. I then went to each SharePoint application pool and right clicked. In the context menu there is an ‘Advanced Settings…’ option. Selecting this allowed me to set the ‘Enable 32-bit Applications’ flag for that specific pool. I was then able to access the SharePoint site even though the Default Application Pool's flag was set to 'true'.

Hope this helps, Geordie...

Note: When I tried to configure the BizTalk server using the basic configuration tool it failed badly. Once I gave the BizTalk service account create permissions on the database I was able to automaticaly configure BizTalk up to the BAM components. after that I had to manually configure each piece, setting the 'default application pool' appropriatly for the componet I was configuring. Also when configuring the SharePoint adaptor you need to select the correct website (ie the 'SharePoint-80' site from the dropdown list, the default web site will not work).

How to debug SharePoint feature receivers

Geordie — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:20:51 GMT

Just a quick one to detail how this is done in case someone finds it useful. For those still getting into working with SharePoint features, a feature receiver is a class which contains some code you've written to execute when a feature gets activated. Or deactivated, installed or uninstalled.

The key thing to note is that it's just standard ASP.Net debugging. The process is:-

deploy the assembly to the runtime location, either the GAC or the site bin directory. Note that if it's the bin directory your feature will also need appropriate CAS policy to grant the code the permissions it requires.
deploy the .pdb file to the same location. If this is the GAC, you can do the following:-

- map a drive to the GAC folder i.e. C:\WINDOWS\assembly but using a UNC path such as [MachineName]\C$\WINDOWS\assembly. This allows you to browse the GAC without the shell which the framework puts on the folder, thus allowing you to see the actual structure of the files on disk.
- locate the GAC_MSIL subfolder. In here you will see a directory for each assembly currently stored in the GAC. Find the directory for your assembly, and add the .pdb file so it sits next to the dll.
In Visual Studio, attach the debugger to the w3wp.exe process. Note that occasionally there will be 2 of these processes (e.g. when the process is being recycled), and it's possible to attach to the wrong one. Either do an IISReset to stop them both so that only 1 spins up with the next web request, or type 'iisapp' at the command prompt to get the process IDs of the running w3wp.exe processes. You can then match the correct one to the list which appears in the 'Attach debugger' dialog.
Activate the feature through the web UI (Site settings > Site Collection features/Site features). The debugger will now stop on any breakpoints you set.

And remember that the assembly must be built in debug mode so that the symbols are created.

Thanks to Chris O'Brien for this info.
(NB this is a copy of his post stored here for my own reference. Any questions, please follow the link to Chris's site.)

Using OWSSVR.dll to filter SharePoint data on the server side

Geordie — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:21:19 GMT

The use of the OWSSVR.dll to filter data on the server side is a great idea as SharePoint can be slow and it tends to become the corporate dumping ground for all documents. Why delete it when we can retain it for auditing...

So to be able to filter the data to the current entries before transmitting the data over the wire is great. It look like the perfect solution for my problem and it took a number of confussed hours before I found the posting by GaryJ @ Novotronix. I have copied it below.

owssvr.dll - Beware of multiple selection lookups

owssvr.dll can be used in InfoPath projects to provide filtered or cascading drop down lists. Use an XML datasource - the syntax is http://yourserver/yourweb/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Cmd=Display&List={guid}&XMLDATA=TRUE.

However, beware if your list contains a lookupfield that allows multiple selections. If you have this, then the above syntax will return an invalid XML, or a blank data set.

List contains lookup field(s) with single selection - syntax works.
List contains lookup field(s) with multiple selection - syntax fails.

Links:

http://blog.novotronix.com/post/2009/05/15/owssvrdll-Beware-of-multiple-slection-lookups.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/infopath/archive/2007/01/15/populating-form-data-from-sharepoint-list-views.aspx

http://www.bizsupportonline.net/browserforms/filter-cascade-drop-down-infopath-sharepoint-browser-form-owssvr-dll.htm

http://www.synergyonline.com/blog/blog-moss/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=24

Getting the URL Query string values in a Web Part

PsudoKnowledgeBase — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:57:18 GMT

While trying to create a SharePoint 2007 web part I hit a problem that my web searches did not come up with any answers. The problem was I needed the web part that was imbedded in SharePoint to access the query string. I lucked out when examining the objects when debugging the code. The context object is available to the web part and it holds a pointer to the HttpRequests object which includes the Query string property.

SharePoint 2007 Custom Properties

PsudoKnowledgeBase — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:46:09 GMT

I have recently been working on some web parts for a site hosted on a SharePoint 2007 (aka MOSS 2007). I was unable to get the custom properties to work. Paul Stork was kind enough to provide the answer. Apparently the method declaration changed between SharePoint 2003 and 2007. The reference that I had found was for the older version.

Old Version (2003)

private const string defaultText = "John";

private string text = defaultText;

Browsable(true),

Category("Test"),

DefaultValue(defaultText),

WebPartStorage(Storage.Shared),

FriendlyName("Text"),

Description("Text Property")]

public string Text

{

get { return text; }

set { text = value; }

}

MOSS 2007 custom Properties

[System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebBrowsable(true)
,System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebDisplayName("Text Prop Name")
,System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebDescription("Text Prop Tooltip")
,System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.Personalizable( System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.PersonalizationScope.User)
,System.ComponentModel.Category("Todd Parts")
, System.ComponentModel.DefaultValue(DEFAULT_TEXT_PROP)]
public string TextProp
{
get { return _textProp; }
set { _textProp = value; }
}