Michael Van Cleave

STSDEV Solution Generator

2008-09-04T16:15:26-06:00:00

In one of my previous blog posts I was sizing up 3 different methods of generating SharePoint solutions in Visual Studio. It was a fairly lengthy post about using things like the Visual Studio Extensions, WSPBuilder, and BAT files, but one reader bought to my attention that I never evaluated the STSDEV Solution Generator.

Well lucky for me the reader chimed in and let me know that there was a hole in my post.

I finally was able to find something to try the STSDEV Solution Generator on to try to stretch my knowledge of it a bit. Recently a colleague and I started a new user group in Colorado Springs and decided to use the User Group site template for WSS for the user group web site. Now needless to say it is a very nice template but it definitely needed some new web parts to make it the site we had envisioned. I have decided to install and use the STSDEV tool to wrap up the webparts in to a deployable solution. Here is what I found:

It is easy to use.
It has a interesting concept of starting a windows interface to allow you to select the type of project you want to work with
It does all of the heavy lifting for you when creating the solution file
When generating the solution file it also makes a copy of the .wsp package with a .cab extension so you can quickly pop open the cab to verify your files are stored correctly or even stored at all.
With the granularity that it allows you to modify and add files to the project it will easily support deploying dependent assemblies and resources.

The one thing that I would say that I prefer WSPBuilder over STSDEV for is the integration with Visual Studio and the generation of an install BAT file. Although I would say that both are on very equal ground as far as capability WSPBuilder has the project templates integrated with the project and solution which is a very nice feature, and the ease of clicking a bat file to do the deployment makes it all the better. Not that you couldn't create a BAT file for STSDEV though.

Overall, I would say that I would be happy to use either one of these tools anytime. They both have attained my desired goal of being able to create a solution package for SharePoint without having to worry about the gory details that take the efficiency out of most SharePoint projects.

Reference Links:

STSDev Solution Generator
WSPBuilder
Previous Post

Michael

50064 – Advanced SharePoint Development, Part II

2008-09-02T09:45:16-06:00:00

In a previous post I started to get in to how I was surprised by the amount of detail Chris Givens put in to creating this course. Nevertheless I am still astounded at the amount of detail and the depth he goes in to.

Let me back up a bit here. I have been requested to teach Chris's Advanced SharePoint Developer course at AmeriTeach next week (9/8 – 9/12). So I spent much of last week getting deeper in to the instructor demos and the course labs. I was very impressed not only by the amount of detail Chris goes in to as mentioned before, but by how deep he gets in to the module subject. I am over half way through the course and can definitely tell you that he has taught me a few new things.

Let's take an example of a regular course. Generally you will have a couple of modules on working with the basic SharePoint interfaces getting used to what SharePoint is all about. Then you move on to a quick primer on Office SharePoint Designer 2007 with some very quick and general overview topics of what you can use it for and side effects. And then get in to other areas of SharePoint development. While this is a good path, it definitely is different from what Chris has chosen to do. From the start Chris starts in to some deep detail about how to set up FBA, SSO, and other techniques. From there he goes in to SharePoint customization.

The next topic after all of this was SharePoint Designer. What caught my eye right out of the gate was that the course has two modules dedicated to SPD. I was kind of surprised due to the fact that I have never seen another "Development" course hit SPD so hard, but I soon realized why. While I was making my way through the content I found I was learning a slew of new things that I never knew Designer could do. (Alas, the reason I love being a trainer. I get to learn all the time.) My personal perspective of SPD before going through the course was not good. However after this part of the course I will start to look at it as a tool that I will keep in my arsenal. With the new functionality that the course has covered helped me with this paradigm shift.

As I keep making my way though the course I will post more reviews of the content. Also if you are interested in taking the course AmeriTeach will be running it next week and also again in November. Look for the schedule at their site.

Michael

CoSSUG Website is live…

2008-08-30T21:42:49-06:00:00

As part of taking part in starting up a new SharePoint User Group I finally was able to get the site up and running.

Funny and ironic as it might seem Shannon and I decided to go with the "eat your own dog food" approach and create the site with WSS 3.0. Furthermore our efforts were also expedited by using the Community Kit for SharePoint's User Group site template.

Now don't just assume that since it is up that it will not change. There will be quite a few additions to the site in the coming days that we just haven't had time to get done yet, but soon enough we will add some cool web parts and more visual changes to the site. The rush to get the site up was due in part to the first meeting that is coming up on September 2^nd.

If you are local and would like to participate in the Group or if you just want to see the site you can find it at:

http://www.CoSSUG.net/CoSSUG

A big thanks needs to go out to Lawrence Liu and the rest of the CKS developers for the hard work they are doing on creating the SharePoint templates and add-ons that make getting things done with SharePoint much faster.

Michael

MCPD Enterprise….. Finally!

2008-08-29T09:34:50-06:00:00

Finally I was able to button up my MCPD Enterprise. I have been sitting around with the need to take that one last exam and get everything all buttoned up, but with the amount of work I have been doing over the last year or so it has been virtually impossible to get my certification taken care of. As luck would have it I have run in to a quiet period between contracts and was able to on a whim go to a testing center and get the test over with.

I will say that I was not overly impressed with the test. I took 70-549 Design and Architecture exam. I was really hoping to see more design questions. I guess I like the thrill of the puzzle, but I only encountered a couple of questions that I considered actual design questions. Otherwise the rest was more technology focused, meaning that the questions were more like select the correct technology to perform this task.

I was surprised however by the fact I did run in to a couple of blatant trick questions. I actually laughed a couple of times when I ran in to them. Just because if you are one of those speed reading test freaks you probably would have totally breezed past the key parts of the question and answered it incorrectly. I am not quite the speed reader which I am sure what saved me.

Overall, the test is a good test. It definitely is challenging, but I would have liked to see more design questions on it.

Michael MCPD

SharePoint Solution Generators

2008-08-18T14:41:17-06:00:00

On the project I just completed I was in need of the ability to quickly package a site definition, web parts, and workflows for a custom SharePoint site. I ended up using 3 different techniques in order to package the 3 different solutions. Which in the long run I wouldn't recommend, but overall I now have a much deeper aspect of the different techniques I used. I will detail the pro's and con's I found for all of them and you can make your own decision as to which one you would use to suit your development needs.

Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WSS 3.0 v1.1

Since the project was going to be completed with VS 2005 I used the extensions to help develop the solution for the site definition part of the project. This add-on that you can download from MSDN is a must have for any SharePoint developer. The problem is that with all of the great things that it offers to the developer it also offers just as difficult to use or ambiguous functionality. Also I found the User Guide that is supposed to make using the tool easier offered very little or out of date information.

Pros

Includes the Solution Generator
1. You initially can set up a site that mimics the structure of your site or list and run this tool against the site to build all the necessary files. This is a big time saver.
It has many different templates that are useful for creating a wide range of different objects in SharePoint. You have choices like Webpart, List, Site Definitions, and many more.
It is an add-on to VS and provides an additional view. The WSP view helps the developer package the different project objects in to a SharePoint solution.
It automatically includes any new additions to the project to the solution package
The tool also gives the developer a Deploy option that will build the package, add the solution to SharePoint, and deploy the solution.

Cons

As stated above in the introduction to the tool, it is the lack of a good, clear, and up to date User Guide. By far I see this as a huge problem.
Lack of rich interaction in the WSP view. In order to do much of anything with the WSP view you have to either use 'F' keys or a couple of tool bar buttons that are offered.
Lack of ability to package dependent assemblies in to the package.
1. I am not sure if I was just missing something that wasn't obvious or if the User Guide didn't cover it, but I had a 2 other assemblies that I needed to be deployed with the site definition and after some time trying I failed to get them to package and deploy correctly.

Traditional MakeCAB with Packaging .bat files

The inherent manual functionality that any developer has with developing SharePoint solutions is the ability to use an XML manifest file and a MakeCAB build file to create a solution package. I won't really rehash how to do this, but if you need a good reference you can find many blogs and articles on this topic. But the technique I used was right in line with what Ted Pattison defines in his book Inside WSS 3.0. I chose this because I personally find his practice easy to understand and also easy to explain to any other developers that might come on to the project or in case of the need to transfer knowledge.

Pros

The developer has a great amount of control and granularity in creating the solution.
This strategy gives the developer a deep understanding of how a solution packages are created.
There is a lot of good information as to how to put a project together in VS to accomplish the creation of the solution package.

Cons

There is a lot of manual labor that has to be done every time you set up a project that will use this strategy.
1. Although after the first project you will more than likely have some template files you can use to get up to speed more quickly, but nevertheless it is still a very manual process.
Anytime the developer adds new files to the project that needs to be packaged then the file reference needs to be added to the manifest and MakeCAB build file.
1. The manifest file is not too difficult to understand, but the MakeCAB file can become difficult to follow or debug if there is an error.

WSPBuilder

WSPBuilder is nothing less than a Visual Studio Add-in godsend. This is a great tool and is very easy to use. Not only that, but it comes with a single very small read me document that is very concise about how to use it. The add on for VS is very similar in concept to the Extensions mentioned above, but it does a much cleaner job allowing the developer to implement dependent assemblies and still maintain a very granular control over the solution like the traditional strategy.

Pros

Easy to use, and has an up to date readme.doc that is very clear as to how to use the tool.
Add-in to Visual Studio
Creates WSP package and also some additional deployment .bat files
Has a console side that can be used for Continuous Integration setups.
Allows for granular control of the package, but also doesn't have the overhead of having to setup the base project structure and other common files as in the traditional strategy above.
The tool also gives the developer to deploy dependent assemblies and files to the various folders that can be used with SharePoint development
1. Folders like the GAC, Bin, and others are creatable in the folder structure of the WSPBuilder project template.
Contains many of the same templates that come with the Extensions add-in mentioned above.

Cons

To this point I haven't found any CONS to this tool. It really is the best of the 3 strategies. It is much easier to use with less manual setup.

Conclusion

As far as I am concerned the WSPBuilder is by far the winner in my book. It provides the necessary level of granularity and ease without all of the manual setup of the manual project files and structure. Not that I don't like the manual I just don't like performing redundant tasks. Also from what I understand there might be a CodePlex project that will build the Ted Pattison project structure for you, but I haven't worked with it so I really cannot comment much on it.

Now, I know that some of the pros and cons are probably different from what you might be experiencing, but if you have one that you would like to add to any of these or even another tool that you think should be included then I would love to hear from you.

Link References

Hope you have enjoyed this evaluation of the solution builders.

Michael

Colorado Springs SharePoint User Group

2008-08-16T12:38:01-06:00:00

So what is Big, Brainy, and new in Colorado? Well, if you haven't guessed by the title of the post then you need a course in observation. J

There is a new community coming to town and it already has started to take on a life of its own. Shannon Bray and I have decided to start up a User Group on Colorado Springs. Not because there isn't one already in Denver that already does a good job, but because of popular demand from clients and associates in Colorado Springs that have to drive close to an hour if they would like to attend the Denver one.

The group will gather at:

LeaderQuest
2790 N Academy Blvd
Suite 238
Colorado Springs, CO 80917

The first meeting will be September 2^ndfrom 6:30pm to 8:30pm, and will continue every second Tuesday of every month.

Shannon and I are working on getting a website setup and also more information about the schedule of events to come. I will post more about these events when information becomes available.

Also if you are interested in getting in to the community spirit I have also created a LinkedIn Group that you can join just click HERE.

Michael

Rainy day in Denver

2008-08-16T12:12:11-06:00:00

So what do you do on a rainy day in Denver? Well, if you are me you will catch up on some blogging and get some other delinquent tasks.

I know that I have been hiding under a rock but there has been so much going on. I just finished up a project for a client and next week I am teaching a WSS 3.0 deep dive course at AmeriTeach. Also it looks like I get to catch up on some much needed relaxation.

From a previous post Chris Givens, the author of the Advanced SharePoint Developer course, sent me a copy of the Advance SharePoint Developer II course. I am about half way through the content of the first one and really look forward to the second part. I am thoroughly impressed by the amount of effort and attention to detail he has put in to the first course. Also he just contacted me earlier this week to let me know that he has just launched a new course. The course is more centered toward the operations side of SharePoint. Definitely keep an eye on his site for the course announcement.

Also, I have even more work to look forward to. Shannon Bray and I are starting up a new SharePoint User Group. I will have another post following this one detailing more about the group and its first meeting.

That is about it for now. I will post more details about the User Group in the next post.

Michael

Duplicate Provisioning of Webparts

2008-07-29T16:42:10-06:00:00

Currently I am working on a site definition project that has been very entertaining and also had some pretty interesting challenges.

Overall the project is going very smoothly utilizing all of the same techniques I teach from the Inside Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 course at AmeriTeach. But I recently ran in to a very interesting situation in which I was provisioning a web part page with webparts via CAML.

Here is a sample of the CAML that is used for provisioning the page with a webpart:

<![CDATA[ {webpart info goes here}]]>

</AllUsersWebPart>

</File>

If you notice, on my File element I have IgnoreIfAlreadyExists set to TRUE. Pretty much what this is telling me is that if the page already exists in the library that I am provisioning this to then it will skip over this entry and ignore everything that is inside of it. Well that is not quite the case.

In my situation I was provisioning a lot of pages that looked essentially the same but had different names and content in some content editor webparts. So in an effort to save some time I just cut and pasted about 15 of the same entry over and over again then went back and changed the Name attribute of the File element. It seemed to work like a champ, except I didn't notice that I had one extra entry that I didn't change the name and it was a duplicate of the initial page entry I had copied.

In effect I had 2 of the same entries with the Ignore attribute set to TRUE, but the effect was that the page was not duplicated; however the webparts that were to be provisioned ended up being provisioned twice on the one page that was provisioned.

So to sum it all up, if you are provisioning pages and you have the IgnoreIfAlreadyExists attribute set to true then it will not overwrite the page if it already exists, but it will not affect the provisioning of the webparts on the page.

Michael

Shannon Bray is moving on up…

2008-07-19T23:15:23-06:00:00

A guy I have known for over 4 years now is going places.

I met Shannon at a contract I was working for a previous employer and quickly noticed that we both had many of the same interests and skills. Since then we have kept in contact and always seem to be pushing each other to one up the other in things like certifications, new technologies, or even interesting client engagements. Recently he came to work with me at Qortex as a Senior Solutions Developer and Microsoft Certified Trainer. Needless to say it was on from day 1.

Well, I think he finally got one up on me that will be very difficult to top. About 6 months ago he was invited to the mothership (Redmond, WA) to help deliver some content to internal Microsoft employees. The event is called Tech Ready. He must have done a good job, because next week he will be flying out again to assist in delivering in-depth SharePoint content to more Microsoft employees. Talk about a dream scenario.

Anyway, I thought I would congratulate him publicly (for which I doubt I will ever live down), and also point some of you to his blog. He has some really good content and also has a good pulse for what is going on in the SharePoint world currently. Not only that but he has a current post on a custom top navigation and side navigation component that we are currently using for a project we are working together.

Check out his blog, I doubt you will regret it.

Michael

50064 Advanced SharePoint Developer Course

2008-07-19T11:19:29-06:00:00

It has been a long time since my last post, but I have good reason. I have been terribly busy trying to complete a really cool project for one of my clients. I will post more about it in a later entry, but to say the least it has been quite an adventure.

Anyway that is not the point to this blog. I thought I would put a little ditty together about a course that I am going to be teaching at AmeriTeach here in Denver coming up in September. It is the 50064 Advanced SharePoint Developer course.

You might know from previous posts that I have been teaching the Ted Pattison WSS 3.0 Development course for AmeriTeach and I love it. It by far is some of the best content I have seen for SharePoint Development. I would recommend it for any ASP.NET person that would like to learn the nuances of SharePoint development without all of the headaches of trying to figure them out on your own. But With AmeriTeach expanding it SharePoint curriculum they decided to run the Advanced Development course created by Chris Givens at Architecting Connected Systems. The first surprise that I had was that after they decided to add it to the class roster Chris personally e-mailed AmeriTeach and offered to assist them with any questions or problems they had with the course. Needless to say I was instantly impressed due to the professionalism of getting in touch out of the blue to support the course he created.

Anyhow, I am starting to go through the course content this week in preparation for the forthcoming course and already I am devouring the content. The first couple of modules attack some realistic issues I have seen at many clients that I feel are very important for any SharePoint developer to know and understand. Chris's labs are easy to follow, detailed, and allow the student to see how simple it is to work with SharePoint.

In my courses that I teach I try to train the students in what I call "Thinking in SharePoint". Very similar to the idea of a developer trying to understand and apply object oriented programming principals; students need to understand the concepts of SharePoint to be able to properly use SharePoint as a development platform. I have no doubt that with this course it will further any students understanding of how to "Think in SharePoint" and develop better SharePoint applications.

So if you are interested in getting deeper in to SharePoint and developing in SharePoint to the fullest extent possible, please come checkout the courses I am presenting at AmeriTeach and see just how much fun SharePoint can be.

Happy coding…

Michael

Very Large SharePoint Database Files

2008-06-03T15:06:53-06:00:00

So you have installed SharePoint (WSS or MOSS) and you have been happily using it for a while now. Everyone in the office has been taking part in creating some really cool content or loading their sites up with some very important information.

Now fast forward a few months. Your local administrator of the server gets in touch with you to let you know that your SQL Server is running low on memory. What? How could this be? You start to look for the source of the issue and low and behold you run across a 120 GB database log file. 120 GB???? Yep. 120 GB.

You start to think to yourself, “Man, I didn’t know that the SharePoint databases were going to take up this amount of memory. Maybe I need to purchase an extremely large drive to put the database files on”.

Well you could do that. Or you can modify a few settings and set up a few good maintenance plans and you can reduce that log file down to mere kilobytes. This actually happened to a few clients of mine. The main source of the problem is that when most folks install SharePoint they don’t realize that it creates the databases and sets them to Full Recovery Mode. What this means is the database log (.ldf) file never gets shrunk. Mainly this is so that if something happens to the database they you have a full history of all of the transactions that have taken place. But, this is bad for many reasons as well. Now don’t get me wrong many places have that grumpy DBA that will take care of all of this stuff for you, but I mainly see this in small to medium organizations that don’t have a full time DBA on staff and/or they roll a development farm to production without a lot of forethought on recovery if something goes bad.

Let’s see what we can do about this.

First open up your file explorer on your database server or whatever server your database files are located on and look at the size of the database .mdf and .ldf files. If you have a default install of SQL Server you can find these files under C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data. Usually if you find that the .ldf files are in the high MB or GB you definitely need to continue with this article. If not at least check to verify that you have database backups and/or maintenance plans in place.

STEP 1: Backup all the SharePoint Databases
If you are going to do anything with the databases it is always a great idea to do a Full backup on each database

STEP 2: Change the Recovery Mode of the database
This is a fairly easy thing to do. You log in to SQL Server and navigate your way to each one of the databases you want to take care of. The following screen shot is of the database properties dialog. Just right click the database and select “Properties”.

The red outlined section is the recovery model setting. Currently it is set to FULL. The other selection “Simple” is the selection we need to use. So select “Simple” and click OK.

STEP 3: Shrink that excessive log file!!!
So the database that I am currently using as an example the log file is nearly 2 GB (actually it is 1.795GB). To shrink the database log file, right click the database and select “Tasks”, then select “Shrink”, then select “Files”. You will get this dialog:

The database file type is what we are after. We want to switch it to “Log”.

Notice the red highlight. Look at the log file size and the available free space. You have the ability to recapture nearly 89% of the space that is currently allocated. Make sure that the shrink action is set to release unused space and click OK. Now your log file should shrink to only the needed space and it should end up around a few hundred KB.

The important take away here is that when you set up SharePoint you need to be sure that you are actively maintaining your system or be sure that you have the proper processes in place for the database. I have seen many of my clients that all this comes as a shock to them. I don’t think it is really their fault, but more just a point that they never knew had to be considered. Most clients that have DBA’s on staff will rarely run in to this problem since most DBA’s will be the first to be sure that these database are fully maintained and recoverable.

On a side note, please be sure that you or someone that is qualified in your organization creates maintenance plans for the databases. This will assist you in being sure that the database is backed up and maintained properly. There are many articles out there on how to set these plans up on SQL Server 2005 so I won’t bore you with that. J

HTH.

Michael

Trike For The Troops 2008

2008-05-18T20:09:59-06:00:00

Well, Rick White (nutball extraordinaire) is at it again.

Last year on bike to work day for benefit to the US troops he took to the streets with a small trike and rode over 4 miles to work. He gained a lot of attention and raised over $5000 that went to help send care packages to the troops. This year he is upping the ante a bit. Not only does he have a new group of soldiers to help, but he also has a new trike. One that will make most mobile computing technologies look so last decade.

If you would like to know more about what Rick is up to or how you can help, check him out on this YouTube video:

Or go to his website to get more information about how you can help the cause.

Good Luck Rick!

Michael

Moving SharePoint Database Data Files

2008-04-27T21:41:53-06:00:00

I ran across a client that was looking to move the SQL Server data files and logs from their SharePoint 2007 installation to another drive. The reason was to free up some space on the drive that SQL Server was installed on. I decided to post the steps that I took so that it might be beneficial for others. Now, with that said, I am not completely positive that my steps are the best possible way; but it did accomplish the task and everything worked when I was done. So I guess the steps I took couldn't have been too bad. J

Here are the steps:

Quiesce the Farm – This is especially important if you are working on a production system. Pretty much it takes the farm out of commission and doesn't allow any more sessions to be created.
Backup all of the databases that you are looking to move.
1. With the client I was working with they were looking to move all of the SharePoint database data and log files. Your needs may vary, but in any case this is another very important step. Be sure you have a current backup of any databases you will be fiddling with.
Turn off SharePoint Services
1. This will stop the connections to some of the databases. If you try to detach any of the databases you will find that some will have connections active. In case of the content databases you will probably find that the connections to the have already been taken care of. Either way you will need to stop some of the SharePoint services in order to get the search databases and config database totally disconnected.
2. You can either stop the services through the Central Administration, or you can do it at the Services Console. I chose the services console since I didn't want to deal with typing in configuring the services again.
  1. To stop the connections to the existing databases stop the following services:
    1. Office SharePoint Search Service
    2. Windows SharePoint Services Administration
    3. Windows SharePoint Services Search
    4. Windows SharePoint Services Timer
    5. Windows SharePoint Services Tracing
    6. World Wide Web Publishing Service
After the services are stopped, you should be able to detach the databases that you are looking to move.
After detaching the databases navigate to where the data and log files are being stored and copy them to your destination.
Reattach your databases.
Restart your services.
Un-quiesce the farm.

If everything went well, you should have the ability to get back to your sites and all of your content. If not, you can always roll back to the database data files you previously had in the old location. I would recommend doing a test run on a development machine first to be sure that you not encounter any problems.

Hopefully, you will find this to be helpful in your quest if you run in to the same need.

Happy SharePointing..

Michael

Wiki - Is it right for me?

2008-04-17T21:04:56-06:00:00

I had a respondent to another one of my posts ask me a very interesting question. I had to pause and think about the answer for a couple of minutes. I guess I had taken for granted my process for explaining when to use one method over another for implenting wiki's.

If you are using SharePoint you realize that you have a couple different ways to implent a Wiki. You can create a Wiki Library in a site, or you can create a Wiki site. So what is the difference? Essentially nothing. You have the same ability to capture tacit knowledge. So when should you use one over the other?

Here is the method I use to decide:

First off, if the information that is being captured only is useful to the a sites members or a team I would use a Wiki Library inside of a team site. Reason being is that it is really specific for only that purpose and usually the content that is being delivered is not of interest outside of that group. So a great example for this would of course be a Team Project Site that needs to share common information or content. So things like jargon, buisness concepts, or even requirements can be captured and quickly shared with the rest of the team.

Now when would I use a Wiki site? Well, this is more of the macro version of the list concept. I would use this when the content is going to be of interest to anyone that is going to a portal. To give you a good example, think of a company that is using SharePoint as a intranet. Departments could use Wiki sites to publish content to the rest of the company that is important to the company as a whole. So lets assume that Human Resources wants to make it easier to publish Policies and Procedures, an Employee Handbook, or even Company Benefit FAQ's then a wiki site can be created to capture the content.

Anything inbetween is just a judgement call, but remember if you decide later you should have gone with one over the other you can always migrate the content.

Hopefully this will be helpful to you in the future when you decide to use wiki's. And Kay (Phoebe), thank you for the idea for the post.

MIchael

When do you throw in the towel?

2008-04-15T22:02:06-06:00:00

In a previous post I mentioned that I recommended using WSS or SharePoint for kick starting the creation of web based applications. With that said, I need to post on another important subject that has come up in regards to that. I have a client which I really enjoy working with. They are a good company and they did see the potential benefit of using SharePoint to get their application a solid foundation. They utilized WSS 3.0 to create their web presence and web application for their customers. However, the company that they first hired to create this application built it out completely with SharePoint Designer 2007.

So now that you have the overview here are some of the details of how this became a tragic situation.

The company that built this application used just a standard ASP.NET developer instead of a person that had any SharePoint experience. How do I know this? Well none of the built in SharePoint functionality was used in the code, and while we are on the topic of the code; since it was all done in SharePoint Designer it is all inline code with no real ability to actively debug. Common code is copied and pasted in close to ever page, and whenever they wanted to get at a SharePoint list or other object they would create the SPSite object utilizing a hard coded url instead of using the SPContext object.

After they finally finished up with the initial consulting company they decided to hire a much larger consulting firm to come in and try to fix the initial implementation that the first company did such a bad job putting together. Well, after a while maintaining and trying to stabilize the product the finally decided to part ways to.

Now it I have it. I am looking at the application and wondering if it is able to be saved. One of the directors I am working with asked when he would finally have an application that he didn't see as needing constant attention and when they would feel like they could stop cursing the first consulting company. My reply was that I really didn't know. I am person that makes decisions based on logic and fact, and from what I have seen I don't accurately think I could even give him an estimate of time to get the application to that point. To fix most of the average issue on the application takes hours or days and usually causes other bugs to surface. I know that most of you have seen this before. So the question is when do you throw in the towel and start over? I know that it can be painful, but usually in the end you come out with a better application and it is usually better built.

Either way, please don't let this dissuade you from using SharePoint for development, but please be sure that if you are not familiar with using SharePoint as an application or as a framework make sure that you have someone that has some experience with it before you just start throwing code together. If that is not an option, please look in to Ted Pattison's Training. I have taught his WSS course and it is the best start to getting in to doing REAL development with SharePoint. If you need are recommendation of the course that would best suite you or would like some advise please don't hesitate to contact me. I would be happy to help.

Until then, happy coding.

Michael