The SharePoint Business Application Specialists
Seems that even if you turn off presence on an application (in central administration/application management/web application general settings/person name smart tag and presence settings), the profile button and menu still shows up in search results.
Is easy enough to remove by editing the page, modifying the people search core results and launching the XSL editor. Remove the whole <xsl:choose>…</xsl:choose> element immediately below <span class=”psrch-Title”>
Have been getting the following error in SharePoint from a custom web part which tries to connect to a SQL Server 2008 SP1 database
A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 – Could not open a connection to SQL Server)
Spent several hours diagnosing the problem. The solution is as follows
Start SQL Server Configuration Manager. Click on “Protocols for MSSQLServer”. Enable TCP/IP (which is disabled by default).
It seems that some versions of IE create the wrong SPN when accessing a web site via a CNAME record. More info at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911149/en-us
To be on the safe side, use A records in DNS to point to your SharePoint site.
On a normal SharePoint deployment I get all the web applications (central admin, SSP admin, My Sites and the portal site) working using Kerberos by setting SPNs, configuring the applications, and verifying everything is working okay by using Kerbtray. Similarly I set up SQL Server for Kerberos.
However one thing has always bothered me slightly: What about the web services of the SSP?
In Martin Kearn’s very thorough article he correctly states that you enable Kerberos with the following command:
stsadm –o setsharedwebserviceauthn –negotiate
On a single server farm this appears to work fine.
However if you perform this step on a multiple server farm, and then try to start the MOSS search service on subsequent servers in the farm, it will fail to start, giving an authentication error.
The problem is due to the Kerberos configuration for the SSP not being complete. Of course, how could it be, because we never set any SPNs? The solution is that there are several additional steps needed to configure Kerberos for the SSP. These additional steps can be found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263449.aspx#section14
Also I have also found the following document to be most useful when troubleshooting Kerberos errors:
Running MOSS 2007 SP1 with infrastructure updates. Have defined various audiences including one “New Products”. All normal targeting of content using the CQWP is working fine and as expected, however…
On one page we want to show all articles where the target audience includes “New Products”, regardless of whether or not the user is actually in that audience. The CQWP appears to let you do this, by
However the bad news is that it simply doesn’t work. No items are ever returned with the filter set.
Many IT organisations have faced a question whether or not to develop using Agile as part of their change management process. It has its own well documented merits – such as ability to empower and motivate teams and increase their throughput, as well as deliver a product that meets the customer’s needs very well. A highly motivated team is also more likely to display a greater ability to innovate – a winner all around!
As a project manager reasonably new to “Agile with Scrum” – we are keep to use it at PointBeyond and we tried that in my previous jobs, occasionally with somewhat mixed results – I wanted to share my own thoughts on the suitability of Agile to organisations’ project management processes.
It seems a good idea to carefully evaluate whether or not to adopt Agile, and to what degree to adopt it, on a case by case basis. There are places where a traditional Waterfall approach could still work. In others, Agile can be of huge benefit. It depends.
From my own experience, I can see two areas where Agile and Scrum might not work all that well. Both cases relate to organisations with cultures that are more regimented, and where trust can be an issue.
The first case is where a customer needs to fully understand the end deliverable before signing off on the dotted line to commence the project. So we are talking about a customer who is fairly inflexible in their approach. To receive a go-ahead to actually start building software, one would then need to put in place a comprehensive functional specification – which will be arrived at after a full-on analysis and design phase.
Of course, going Agile does not mean that the functional specification is necessarily dead – only that it might be short, focus on key architectural decisions which are the cornerstone of a deliverable, and focus on the critical success factors of a piece of functionality. But not all customers will grant such a degree of artistic license to the project team. And hence it can also be a question of trust in one’s professional ability, judgement and skill – is there enough of it between the customer and the vendor? Can the customer “let go” and empower the project team to work out the smaller details using a suitable Agile methodology as the project carries on, or will every question need answering in advance?
The second case is where an organisation’s senior management interferes with the Scrum process, perhaps wanting teams to achieve unrealistic targets and add to its list over and above what teams say they can do – or maybe insists on changes of priorities at short notice and still expect excellent results.
Such an approach can be destructive for any team trying to implement Scrum, as it will cancel the efforts made by the participants to work out their own capacity and commit to work on their own initiative and own understanding of their skillset. Senior management must fully buy into the Agile process and remain strictly at arm’s length. If it does not, the process will not work efficiently and result in lesser motivation and decreased productivity.
The Scrum process allows for priority calls to be made – but only at the start of each Sprint. If, half-way through a Sprint, serious external circumstances cause a massive shift in priorities rendering the current Sprint a total waste of time, the Sprint can be stopped – and this is the only time this is allowed. However if an organisation tries to change priorities half-way through a Sprint by introducing new key items into a committed iteration, whilst Scrum masters allow this to happen under pressure from management, the process can break down. Needless to say, this causes stress to all participants and often does not get the item done on time anyway.
Yet again, we are talking about trust. This time – in implementing Agile – it is between senior management of an organisation and its Product owner, the Project team, and the team’s Scrum Master. When an organisation fully empowers its employees to deliver (whichever change management method is preferred) and gives them all suitable tools to do so, it will have the greatest chance of success. And trust in it’s teams is a huge step towards such empowerment.
Ksenia Woodgate
