#SP2013 The server was unable to save the form at this time.

A user can't edit  and save properties of the document.

In my case it turned out to be a permission issue.
The document library uses a document set which in turn uses a custom content type that were defined on the site collection level.
The lib was created under some site (spweb) , the lib has unique permissions
The user doesn't have access to the site, but has access to the lib.
The user can upload and check in  the document to the document set, but can't edit and save the properties of the custom document content type (which is used in the document set).
Every time the user hits the save button he gets the client-side error -
"The server was unable to save the form at this time.Please try again."
I have traced the issue when the user attempted to create a document set item. He got an error: "Access denied".
It happens because SharePoint uses the link ~site/_layouts/15/NewDocSet.aspx that is not accessible by the user since he doesn't have access to the site.
The obvious fix in my case to give access to the site to the user.

@SPC_ORG SP2013 Search by @bniaulin

Continuous crawl:
 - only works on SP Content sources;
 - by default every 15 min;

Use continuous crawl diligently, only on the content source that they need it.

NO XSLT, use html, css, js

SP2013 SP1 has ability to turn the Optimistic overwrite for title - MetadataExtractorTitle

2 web parts for Search:
SearchResult web part - you have to have a custom display template
Content Search web part - you can re-map the properties

2 types of templates:
1. Control (a container for item display template)
2. Item Display

! Don't touch automatically created js file out from content template

Result types helps to vary item templates based on the rule (conditions)

Resources:
http://tympanus.net/codrops/

@SPC_ORG Go mobile with responsive design by @kyleschaeffer

1. Why Mobile
30% audience are on mobile already for a general content

2. What is responsive design
Future-friendly approach to handle different screen resolution.
The inventor of the term - Ethan Marcotte

3. How does it work?
HTML+CSS+JavaScript
Flexibility & Adaptation

• Stop using fixed width, use %;
• CSS Media query

@media screen and (max-width:800px) {} - basically, a rule when to use this CSS in {}


"Mobile first" is better since the client won't need to download extra artifacts

4. How SharePoint do it?
 this is a tricky question. It takes more effort.
We don't have full control on SP OTB html and css.

Much easier if you start with your own master page.

• Disable "Mobile browser view"
• Activate SP server publishing

(team site don't have master pages, you have to activate the publishing feature, and you need to create a new page for layouts)
Use only Publishing template!

When you create a mobile portal - keep only: publishing site template, custom master page and layouts

• Create responsive templates:
• Master pages
• Page layouts
• Item styles
• Display templates (2013)
• Create responsive content

ListView is still a problem to make it responsible

A kind of workaround: Put a div wrapper.

Resources:

http://spblueprint.codeplex.com/  - a blank blunt template for Sp2013 OTTB Responsive
http://responsivesharepoint.codeplex.com/

@SPC_ORG @DougHemminger on #SharePointApp development

No more authohosted app!
MS announced that the Office 365 Autohosted Apps Preview program will end on June 30, 2014.
So now we have 2 left: SharePoint-hosted, provider-hosted.

App model to solve security issues of full trust solutions.

When to use the App Model
 -SPOnline
 -Strong JavaScript\Client side developers

a nice thing to know: Office dev center has Showcase: Contoso incubation search app

Other recommended read: 

Apps for SharePoint compared with SharePoint solutions

Note:
On Anonymous access for App - How to: Create apps for SharePoint that can be used by anonymous users

@SPC_ORG @helloitsliam on SP2013 Authentication & Authorization

 Claims mentality: there is no user, there is an attribute by Liam Cleary

Authentication = Verification of Claim (login, pwd) - is not on SP
Authorization = Verification of Permission (access verification) - going on SP

Authentication precedes authorization (except anonymous access)

Often mistake: "Too often we focus on Authentication and not Authorization"

Authentication Claims
 - wide support;
 - WF-Trust 1.4
 - SAML Token 1.1 AuthN
 - It was developed for Sign On
 - Federation
Already many providers
-Microsoft standard approach
- before we needed to write custom code to authenticaion

Claim =
1. Identity (AD, Google, Windows Live) +
2. Claim (Attibutes of the Identity) +
3. Token (binary Representation of Idenity) +
4. Relying Party (aka RP) +
5. Secure Token Service (STS)

What is Claims Augmentation:

• Ability to intercept the incoming claims and transform to different outgoing claims
• Add additional attributes

Why to use Claims Augmentation: - retrieve user attributes to LOB

Authentication methods:

1. AD is a classical method authentication.

2. Membership and Role Providers - a custom mechanism for authentication

3. Custom Identity Provider.

Requires Trusted Certificate for communication

4. Azure Control Service (Azure Windows AD)

for O365 - ADFS Type cloud based service

Oauth - is a mechanism based on "Trust"

You trust the app, the app has permissions assigned.

So you can access data that you (as user) don't have access, but app has.

Why term set pop up doesn't have "Add new item"

One of the common confusions using term store in SharePoint is:
 #1. who can contribute (add new items) to the term set?
 #2. why the term set pop doesn't have "add new item"?
As in this example:

Here is the mystery solved:
for #1. Who can contribute to the term set?
In Term Store (_layouts/15/termstoremanager.aspx) you have Term set group to which you can assign access to contribute by adding a user to:
1. Group Managers (high privileged)
2. Contributors

More here : Manage permissions and roles for term sets

for #2.why the term set pop doesn't have "add new item"?
Make sure that:
1. a user has permissions to contribute (see above)
2. the term set submission policy it open

3. the managed metadata column in the list has "Allow Fill-In" - Yes

#SP24 : SP2013 New methodology on Branding by Khoa Quach

@niftykhoa in #SP24S007 "Branding in SharePoint 2013" demoed New way to brand the SP Sites.

Tools and libraries:

• Visual Studio 2012/2013
• SPD 2013
• Web Development Editor/Tool and mapped drive to asset library in SP2013.

Optional libraries:

• jQuery
• Boostrap.js
• Angular.js, Backbone.js, Ember.js
• Knockout.js
• CoffeScript.js

Rendering page in SP = Master page + Page Layout + page (content)

New branding methodology in SP2013:
Device channel + master page => the design for mobile
Device channel has User agent string to identity the mobile (to get agent string - http://useragentstring.com/)
After identifying the device channel, create a custom master page  and link that page to a channel

Design manager
Allows web designer do the web design in html and upload that into the design manager, which converts the html into master page
In case you need to modify markup stick either with master page or html. Preferably, modify only html to keep automotive conversion going smoothly.

Add additional elements into the markup via snippet gallery.

Utilize JSlink

#SP24 : SP Online vs On-Premise

A visual aid from #SP24 conference on SP Cloud vs OnPrem

#SP24 : SP Solutions vs Apss

A quick visual aid from one of the speaker in #SP24.
How do you choose between SP Solutions and SP Apps?

#SP24 : How good is SP2013 as a WCM?

I have never worked with other Web Content Management  (WCM) system other than SharePoint. So, I am wondering how good is it? And what alternatives do we have?
And here are few slides to broaden awareness what platform do we have and where SharePoint has his place.

#SP24 : SharePoint IAAS

@kenmaglio in #SP24S018 "Azure IaaS - Easy Mode SharePoint 2013 Development Environment" showed how to setup SP2013 on Azure VM.
Here are resources to make it happen:
 Walkthrough to setup SP2013 on Azure VM
 Configure the VMs for external access to SharePoint

More on SaaS vs IaaS

#SP24 : How-to go Mobile on SharePoint

+Todd Baginski  in #SP24S017 presented ways to go mobile on SP2013:

3 mobile views: 

• Classic (SP2010, still available in SP2013). Classic doesn’t support HTML 5
• Contemporary (SP2013). works with HTML5 supported devices . Needs to enable Mobile browser view feature for Contemporary
• PC View (“Pinch and Zoom”).

Contemporary is not extensible

Side note: Contemporary view useful to show documents, but no use in the publishing site (and it is not enabled by default). Project server web access doesn't work in contemporary view.

Tip: OTB BI in Excel reporting working well on Mobile:

SharePoint 2013 has 2 main features toward Responsive Design:

Image renditions, Design Manager device channels

Resources:

Todd Baginski' blog: Optimizing Content Authoring with Image Renditions and Device Channels

Todd's web conference: Creating Internet facing web sites with SharePoint on-premises or in the cloud

Third party product: Mobile SharePoint apps without coding

#InfoPath is dead. What's next?

InfoPath 2013 is the last release of the desktop client. will be supported through April 2023.

InfoPath Forms Services in SharePoint Server 2013 is the last release of InfoPath Forms Services. will be supported until April 2023.

The InfoPath Forms Services technology within Office 365 will be maintained and it will function until further notice. It's been said that Office 365 users will have until at least the next major release of office (2015) , plus some

Until we have more detailed technology roadmap and guidance to share with you, we encourage you to continue using InfoPath tools

Essetially FoSL = Forms on SharePoint Lists is coming soon. it will allow you to edit SharePoint LIsts directly in your web browser (rather than opening up InfoPath) they demo it in that session

Here is a envisioned (work in progress) technical road map on replacing InfoPath:

Side notes:

Excel – FoSS – form on top of SpreadSheet

FoSL – form on SP list

Structured document (forms) – no clear vision yet

Access: multiple relational dbs on SQL Azure

#SP24 : #angularJS. Why not #knockoutJS?

+Jeremy Thake in #SP24S058 showed AngularJS basic for SharePoint 2013.

Meanwhile, I have asked people in the web conference room:

Why Angular over Knockout?

and here is the response:

angular is more than a data binding engine, which is what knockout is

 Angular has a different structure and appears to have more features ... at the moment knockout seems easier but like getting used to javascript its just a case of ... getting used to it 

the chart showing the "interest" in Angular exponentially bigger than the other frameworks ...

AngularJS is favored, due to the support of the community. Doing a few searches even around "leaks" shows the community support! 

off the bat, the concepts for service, factory and provider are not in knockout but mostly because there are other ways to do those things ... but that feels more like hacking than using out of box bits :  more directives and customizable directives/tags ... the syntax is different but seems cleaner ...   knockout focuses on purely data binding. angularjs provides a larger framework. either way, leveraging one over the other depends on the reqiurements, right?   if I am just binding, I am fine with Knockout ... but this framework potentially eliminates a lot of the JQUERY lines that I have to support the rest of the app  and here is another thing over knockout ... unless I missed something I can only have one "model" in applyBindings at a time ... this implies I can have many (multiple controllers) ... but I might have missed something advanced in Knockout ... 

What's your take on that? Is that true? Do you prefer knockout? if so, why?
I would love to hear your opinion.

 Back to @jthake main topic: AngularJs bacis
AngularJS facts:

•  has concept: App, Directives, Service, Factory, Providers.
•  comes from Google

AngularJs & SP2013?

• to add  - <div ng-app="myApp">

You can't use templateUrl

• Instead use JSRequest:

• use Bootstrap UI

Resources:
SHAREPOINT 2013 APPS WITH ANGULARJS FROM BUILD CONFERENCE 2014

http://jsfiddle.net/ -to develop and collaborate on JS code.

http://blog.nebithi.com/knockoutjs-vs-angularjs/

#SP24 : Mobile Strategy by Joel Oleson. Go responsive!

+Joel Oleson in #SP24S112 talked about Mobile strategy and design. Go mobile, social and cloud!
82% online population engages in social networking,
50% on enterprise customers are "on the road" to cloud.

People spend more time on mobile apps (89%) than on mobile web (11%)

Most Weekday Tablet usage is between 8PM and 9PM
Few slide to illustrate the point:

 The leading sales in the smartphone market is Android

And here is a reality check in SharePoint 2013
 92% companies don't support Mobile Access to SharePoint
In SharePoint 2013 you have a contemporary view for HTML5 aware devices. Joel insists that we need to more than contemporary view.

Side note: Project Server web access doesn't support contemporary view. Publishing sites are not suitable for this type of view. The contemporary view main intend is to show the folders and files, not a publishing pages and business process applications.


O365 mobile apps:

Joel' key takeaways and considerations:

• SP 2013 Native Mobile browsing has improved for all mobile platform;
• New SP Mobile Apps can make accessing social +people+document easier
• Consider 3d party mobile apps to fill gaps like Offline Sync, Search, Security and Mobile Device App mgmt
• Plan for Mobile Intranets: Seriously consider Industry Best Practices of Responsive Web design

Resoures:
http://responsivesharepoint.codeplex.com/

#SP24 : Search strategy

Jeff Fried presented #SP24S034 the successful Search Strategy. People first.

Key other takeaways:

The common traps in search architecture

Trap #1. "Trying to build a google"

It's a wrong goal because:

 - Google has a huge support to keep it running

 - Google goal is different than enterprise goal of the company. 

The enterprise search goal is business process centric.

Trap #2. "One Search Center for everything"

Search should be business process specific

Ex. Online shopping, dinner, apartment rent

Trap #3. "Stand up OOB search and walk away"

Search needs maintenance

Trap #4. "The technology first"

Even though indexes are crucial for search, need to remember that people create meaning out of the indexes.
So we need to know people first - what and how they search

Jeff introduced a concept of Information Strategy that ties together:
 - Information Governance;
 - Information Architecture;
 - Information Security;
 - Information Intelligence.

Meantime, the Search Strategy is a 3 part interdependent system:

And here are the keys of the success in Search Strategy:

Context – users need to find different info depending on their role, needs, tasks.

Hence the notion of having one place to find everything is not efficient.

Jeff's related presentation

Powerpivot for sharepoint configuration: The user is not a farm administrator

PowerPivot for SharePoint 2013 Configuration gives an error 

“The user is not a farm administrator. Please address the validation failures and try again.”

MSDN says 

Either login as the account that installed SharePoint or configure the setup account as the primary administrator of the SharePoint Central Administration Site.

 Let me tell you, I have tried both and DID NOT HELP
 To keep it short and to help you faster, I will just enlist all things I have done that finally gotten rid of the error/
WARN YOU, I don't know which of these 5 actions allowed me to run PowerPivot configuration successfully. Feel free to try one at time.
Please let me know what helped you in the comments below.

 I assume that install account is the same as a farm account.
 Even though my recent hero recommends to have a distinct install account apart from farm account in real life scenarios most of the time, the account that gets installed the binaries IS the Farm account under which timer service and CA app pool is running.

So I went ahead and check account which runs SharePoint Timer service - it was, let's say, sp_farm account and then

 1. I have added (as as temporary evil) sp_farm to Local Administrators group;
 2. Add sp_farm to Farm Administrators group directly.
Before the Farm Administrators group has only built in group of local Administrators (sp_farm got belong to it, but I didn't trust the PowerPivot configuration is smart enough to get this know to)
 3. Set sp_farm as Central Adminstration site collection administrator

ATTENTION: All 3 actions  AGAINST BEST PRACTICES. After you have finished with PowerPivot configuration, please rollback the changes made for sp_farm.

 4.  CA - Configure service account -> re-select the farm account to sp_farm account and hit ok.
The page is written the way it seems that it doesn't validate that the value is the same as before, so seems like it saves the values back to config. My idea is to remind the farm who is the farm account here.
 5. Run PowerPivot for SP2013 configuration as a sp_farm account.


P.S. I have noticed that post that suggests that tool wants to have you run as an installation account. So that suggests that MSDN article doesn't reflect truth when says that you might be a CA primary administrator.

Managed metadata: 5 things that you wish you knew before using term store management tool in SharePoint

My recent posts are more on the darker side. I see the mistakes, issues and flaws in SharePoint, as well as in working with SharePoint.

It doesn't mean that SharePoint is getting worse, it just means I am getting better). I know more, I see more.

Last couple of years, I was working on understanding how to use SharePoint right. Where SharePoint is helpful, what feature is more appropriate for the specific use case. 

Finally, I have figured out where Managed metadata can bring value. 

More on that:

Role of Enterprise Taxonomy in IA

Taxonomy, Folksonomy. What is it and why we should bother?

I have implemented managed metadata, and have used it successfully to improve findability in the portal.

Nevertheless, working with managed metadata in the real world portal highlights some flaws that currently exist in Term Store management implementation.

1. No history, no versioning

There is no way to see changes made in the term store, nor you can't revert changes.

2.No author of the term

The term doesn't have an author field. So, there is now way to know who created or modified and when the term.

3. No usage (where value is used)

Being in the term store you can't trace where the term has been used.

4. No UI to backup\restore

What you can do is to reach out for PowerShell to export term to backup it.

5. No sync options in case of Hybrid Cloud Architecture

There is no way to maintain term store in sync between 2 farms: on-prem and SharePoint Online

These 5 things can be easily significant in the large implementation of the SharePoint. I hope that you know them before making decision. And it doesn't mean that these facts stop you, but you will be better equipped to set the expectations right.

Common mistakes in SharePoint 2013 Arhitecture

I am participating in the upgrade from SharePoint 2007 to  SharePoint 2013 on premises. It is nice to be back in upgrade work since it was my main activity last 6 years). This time it's a little bit different.
First of all, the upgrade is from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2013. We do it through a transitional SharePoint 2010 farm.
And second of all, I wasn't involved in the architecture phase of building the farm. I jumped on the upgrade bandwagon just before the final prod upgrade. So, what I do mainly is  verifying that new farm is in the working conditions and testing once again the content migration.
Along the way I see how people built the farm and streamlined the upgrade process. It's a good experience to have to observe different style of working with SharePoint. I am free of making architectural decisions, but at the same time I am experienced enough to see outcome of decisions that were made by others.
This post is about my observations on common SharePoint 2013 architectural mistakes.

I can get "editing in the browser" feature with no additional configuration
No, you have to have 2 conditions to have Office Web Apps on the farm:
1. Office Web App server
2.  Claim based web application

You need to have OWA server. You can't place OWA on App server. It should be a dedicated server for Office Web App server.Plan for an additional server in the farm.
Office Web Apps can be used only by SharePoint 2013 web applications that use claims-based authentication


OWA server will handle all Excel calculation

Office Web Apps Server enables you to view workbooks that contain Data Models that use native data. However, you can’t explore data in items such as PivotTable reports, PivotChart reports, and timeline controls that use a Data Model as the data source.

(Overview of business intelligence capabilities in Office Web Apps Server and SharePoint Server)

Overview of Excel Services in SharePoint Server 2013

Excel Web App runs in one of two modes:

SharePoint view mode   In this mode, Excel Services is used to view workbooks in the browser.

Office Web Apps Server view mode   In this mode, Excel Web App is used to view workbooks in the browser.

Comparing Excel Online, Excel Services, and Excel Web App

       Excel Services, and Excel Web App all have a lot in common, but they are not exactly the same. These applications can differ in what workbook features are supported for viewing in a browser

More on SharePoint 2013 architectural pain points

SP farm doesn't use SQL alias

 An old and common mistake. I have just recently jumped on the project after the farm was already configured. The first thing that makes me sick in the farm, that there is no alias for SQL.

So, in case you sql server dies and need to make sure that you name the new server the same way as previous one.

User Profile Service: View the management agent run history for details.

Do you still use FIM for User Profiles in SharePoint 2013?
If requirements allow, I highly recommend to switch to SharePoint Active Directory Import

If not, you may be lost with intricacy of FIM configuration. I hope this How to start User Profile Synchronization service post alleviate some configuration pain.

One the Sp2013 uses FIM, and I recently found an error message in the event log:

The management agent "MOSSAD-User Profile Synchronisation" failed on run profile "DS_FULLIMPORT" because of connectivity issues.

 Additional Information
 Discovery Errors       : "0"
 Synchronization Errors : "0"
 Metaverse Retry Errors : "0"
 Export Errors          : "0"
 Warnings               : "0"

 User Action
 View the management agent run history for details.

And was wondering where IS this agent run history.

Here it is:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\15.0\Synchronization Service\UIShell