Getting users to enter metadata is THE challenge when managing SharePoint document libraries. The moment we set up custom columns for proper document classification, we create a burden for our users who just want to upload files and move on. As an on-again/off-again SharePoint dev, I find metadata super useful but even …

Recently, while trying to use New-WebServiceProxy to automate some SharePoint form entries, I ran into a lookup issue. First, I got this rather generic error: Exception calling "GetListItems" with "7" argument(s): "Exception of type 'Microsoft.SharePoint.SoapServer.SoapServerException' was …

Recently, I was asked to help automate a friend's super boring daily duty of logging repetitive activities to a SharePoint Task list. Even though I'm no longer regularly working with SharePoint (yay!), I accepted the challenge. Below is the script I created, which can be scheduled (and mixed up, even using $a = …

Recently, a colleague requested that I perform a backup of a development site collection at https://sp.ad.local and restore it to the test site collection https://test.ad.local/sites/sp. The test site collection was one of two site collections on the test.ad.local web app. It's been a while since I've done anything in …

Relatively linking to local documents is much simpler you'd expect. Just save the Excel file and the documents in the same directory and =HYPERLINK(filename,filename). No need for "file://" or any fancy hyperlinking. This method works anywhere -- your local drive, a CD-ROM drive, USB stick, or a networked …

Google is kind of hiding this French guy's webpage (at least in America) so I thought I'd point it out. You can install Project Server 2010 and few other Office App Servers on Windows 7 by making two changes: modify the setup\config.xml and adding a faux ServerManagerCMD.exe to your System32 directory. To compile your …

Did you know that SharePoint supports list validation in addition to column validation? I've seen the option 100 times before but it never clicked before I actually needed to use it. In this case, I needed to make sure that anyone setting a task item Status column to Completed was also setting the % Complete column to …

So far as I can tell, Excel Services is not capable of automatic data refreshes when using SharePoint Lists as a data source. If you're looking for this functionality, you have two choices: PowerPivot (best) or scheduled client-side data refreshing (ghetto). In order for Excel Services to communicate with other data …

Okay, I've had to call Helpdesk an embarrassing 8 times today because my PowerPivot upgrade is going horribly wrong and locking out my AD account that, admittedly, I use as a "service" account. I'm really left with no choice -- I'm only granted one account on this network. Restrictive networks are so …

I really thought making SharePoint Lists into pretty graphs and charts in SharePoint would be far more straightforward than it's turned out to be. Recently, I was given a project where I had to do just that and while I read through about 30 SharePoint BI books, none really gave a straight answer on which of the various …