The most useless error message known to man…

WHY? WHY? WHY?!!!!!

Set Up Antivirus on Sharepoint

After the single sign on saga i’m now onto configuring the antivirus system for Sharepoint.  I am installing an enterprise virus scanner onto the server. 

This initially won’t be that useful as it will initially be only available within the company, but once users are able to access Sharepoint via a web portal and upload and download from anywhere it will be essential.

Single Sign On

The biggest pain in the world to set up… after starting to follow a nice Blog post detailing from step 1 how to set up SSO on SharePoint, linking it in with SQL, and getting it all running i hit a brick wall… i couldn’t set the newly created SSO admin account to have the correct permissions in SQL.  This was solved eventually by logging on as the account that set up SQL originally and trying again… success! Next step… SP Central Admin… and a lovely error “cannot connect to configuration database”… 3 hours of internet searching, trying everything possible, i eventually find a SharePoint configuration wizard on the server, run that and bang it’s back up… another success… and only 5 hours into what should be an hour long job!

Next step, configure central admin for SSO… off i go into the correct page… type in all of the settings that are required, all is going well until i click “OK” and BANG another brick wall! Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON'.

Great! Another problem, no doubt another few hours spent trying to figure this latest in a long line of problems I'm encountering setting this up…

#UPDATE#

To solve this issue, you must log onto the machine holding your central administration application as the SSO admin account.  Changing the user you’re signed in as within Central Admin does not cut it you have to be fully logged onto the machine as SSO Admin…

So far I've found SharePoint to be one of the most non user friendly systems to set up… try to do something… oh no, i don’t have permission to do that, find where to grant permissions, get to the next OK button and oh look, shock horror, more permissions problems.

Updates to follow once I've figured this out…

Sharepoint Ideas

Would it be possible to link a sharepoint annual leave system to your Outlook Calendar AND Out Of Office system? So that when you book your Annual Leave via the sharepoint site, it automatically updates your calendar and anyone else who needs that information’s calendars, AND turns your out of office auto-reply on whilst you are not in the office? Something to look at in the future at least…

Phone List – Today’s Saga

I have established that the mobile phone information on the “My Site” section IS being imported from Active Directory.  There is no question about it as i changed my own to 01000100010 in AD and imported the profiles in SSP and it changed the number on mysite…  Now i STILL need to figure out HOW to get the bloody thing to show in the search results… this is all that’s holding me up now, Mobile number, office number and branch… once that’s done it’s on to making it look pretty.

Sharepoint Contacts List – More

I’m still unable to figure out how to get the mobile number to display in the search results page of sharepoint.  The number is displaying correctly.  What i want it to do is show the person’s photo on the left, and next to that in a separate column show:

• Branch - Department
• Job Title
• Desk Phone
• Mobile Phone
• Email Address

As yet i can only get it to display the default results.  I am able to customise the view of these to make them look prettier, i’m also able to remove the ones that are already there.  For some reason i can’t add to them.  I removed the CellPhone mapping from AD in the Profile Properties under shared services management and re-added it as MobilePhone hoping this may help.  It still displays on the “My Profile part of mysite but it still won’t display in the search results despite “mobilephone” and “mobile” being parts of the search scope.

My account was created BEFORE the import from AD which may have something to do with it as one site has mentioned that this changes things a little, but i’m unable to find out the extent to which it has changed bits.

Phone Directory - Continued

The information from AD was pulled across but required me to go into the Admin side of MOSS2007 and tell it where to get the information for mobile phones, faxes and addresses.  This has now been done and is accepting the information in the profiles.  It will display on the public profiles for everyone now.  Unfortunately for some reason it will not display in the people search results box... why this is i'm not sure, should get there eventually.

People Search - More

I have updated Active Directory with all contact details for everyone within Speaking Up.  I've told Sharepoint to pull across all of the profiles again hoping to get it to start displaying Mobile numbers and the like.  Unfortunately as yet it's not working... Great.  Maybe it's an overnight thing?

People Search

I have managed to get the people search function working.  As long as the information is included in the users AD account or on their “My Site” then it is searchable.  I.e. typing in Facilities will return the entries for all relevant people, and the Facilities distribution group email address.  This has also caused people’s “My Site” to display which distribution groups they are members of… not sure if that’s a good or bad thing… i suppose it can always be removed…

Windows Live Writer Test

Just installed Windows Live Writer… this post is to test it’s connectivity with Sharepoint Blogging and see if it’s usable within Speaking Up.

Edit: It works!

Success!

The user profiles for Sharepoint are now updated through Active Directory... I can now progress with getting the Employee Directory online.  The profiles will update anything that's been added or modified every day at 10:00am.

Updates today

Uploaded the PO form to Library/Forms/Procedures Purchase Order Form - New.xlsx

 

Facilities main page updated with new graphic from Ian for Under Construction pages, Myself and Larry's images and contact details removed from facilities leaving only Deidre & Dolores.

 

Still working on trying to find the area allowing an import of profile details from Active Directory... passing it on to Stefan to find out why we can't get in to a few sections due to insufficient permissions for Larry, Ian and myself.

Contacts List

Trying to create the contacts list for Sharepoint... getting nowhere slow.  I need it to update from Active Directory, and so far have hit nothing but brick walls.  Is AD linked in properly? All tutorials are sending me to:

 

Go to User Profile and Properties under Shared Services Administration

 

This doesn't exist? Why? Where is it???