Hide column headings in SharePoint Views

If you want to hide column headings in a sharepoint view which you have sitting on your home page (or any other page for that matter) Perform following actions

1. Edit Page and Add a Script Editor webpart from Media and Content section.

2. Once the Script Editor webpart is added (make sure that the webpart is the last webpart on the page (bottom most). Edit the webpart and click EDIT SNIPPET

3. Add following script in the editor

4. Click OK on the webpart properties and Save the page.

Cannot Save as Draft on a team site blog in SharePoint Online

If you are reading this blog you must have the same issue I had a few days ago: you might not have the right permission level to use this, you might need to select an object or item, or the control might not work in this context.

Its even more frustrating when you know that you are a site collection administrator.

Lets get this solved once and for all.

Click on the gear icon on top right on your screen and select Site contents.

Click on the Posts app.
Click on List>Library settings on the ribbon and click Version Settings.
Make sure you have following settings on the page.

• Require content approval for submitted items? Yes
• Who should see draft items in the list? Only users who can edit items.

Click OK and go back to your blogs home page and try editing the blog again. You should be able to now see Save As Draft in your ribbon and a new Save As Draft button appearing before your Publish button.

Read my previous blog on how to get here.

SharePoint Online Blogs

Today one of the clients I am working for asked me to suggest options for blogging on Office 365 SharePoint Online.

Following are my 2 cents on it.

We have 2 options out of the box
1. SharePoint Blog site
2. Your personal Blog

Let me share what are our options with each type of blog posting and how to do it.

SharePoint Blog Site

You need to have administrative rights on the site/site collection to be able to create a new (Blog) sub site.

On the gear icon click on Site contents

Under Subsites select new subsite

On the New SharePoint Site provide all the required information and select Blog from Select a template Collaboration tab

Click Create.
Once you have the blog site ready you will see following on your Blog home page.

I must admit this is not a very best of interface but this feature is out of box and it works.
On the right hand side you see following options

Create a post

This link lets you create a new blog post.

Manage Post, Manage comments, Manage categories

SharePoint keeps blogs, comments and categories in different sharepoint lists and each link lets you work on the respective sharepoint list.

Change post layout:

Layout that you see on your home page is different from mine because I have chosen Boxed layout. Other options are Basic and Inline.

Your personal Blog

Click on the About Me link on your profile picture on the top right corner of the page. Under Profile you will see Blog section which lets you create your personal blogs. The interface is awesome and also lets you write posts directly from your Office Word which you can post directly to your Blog but I dont like a few things about it.

I cannot share it as I would like it to.

You need to post it to your Yammer feed to get a visibility

Share sends an email with a link to the post.

Clicking on All posts takes me to all my published and draft posts and lets me create a new post which is similar to the small + New post link on the top right on the Blog section on my profile page.

Open your Office Word and compose a pretty blog with images and videos and you can directly publish it to your Blog.

It really depends what type of Blog you or your organization needs. If its really your personal blog which you want to share with your team, My blogs is a way to go but if its organization wide which you want people to be interacting with go for SharePoint Blog Site.

Office 365 - Set user password to not never expire

It is as easy as
1. Connnect-MSOLService
2. Get-MSOLUser -UserPrincipalName | Select PasswordNeverExpires
3. Set-MSOL -UserPrincipalName -PasswordNeverExpires $true
4. Get-MSOLUser -UserPrincipalName | Select PasswordNeverExpires


If all the above statements do not make any sense to you, read on...
  
I was asked by my SDM to create an Global Administrator for one of our clients and set the password expiry to be set to Never. This is what we expect with system accounts when passwords don't change normally.

I created a new account and unchecked "Make this person change their password the next time they sign in"

That's all I though was involved in setting up an account as there was no "Password Policy" that I saw and of course my assumption was not right.

Solution

If you want to apply such a policy for a specific user, PowerShell is your friend. We will see in the end what it takes to apply different password related policies for all users in an organization.

You need to get Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant and Windows Azure AD Module.

Download each of them separately (64 bit) and install one after the other.

Once all is setup, look for Windows Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell and right click and run as administrator

Type following command
Connnect-MSOLService
and connect using admin account on your tenant

First thing you need to do is verify if user password is already set to expire or not. We will run this commend again when we have applied the policy to set if it is set correctly.

Get-MSOLUser -UserPrincipalName | Select PasswordNeverExpires

This command will return you a value of True or False depending on user settings. 

To apply the password never expire policy on your user run the following command

Set-MSOL -UserPrincipalName -PasswordNeverExpires $true

Rerun

Get-MSOLUser -UserPrincipalName | Select PasswordNeverExpires 

to verify if your changes are applied or not.

Office 365 Interface

You must have realized by now that its too much work to be done if you need to apply it to the all users. Fear not my friend and continue reading.

Once you are on your Office 365 admin center click Service Settings and then select Passwords. This is where you administrate organization wide password policy. 

Happy administrating Office 365.

Onboarding Office 365 Series

I am working on a project for one of my clients where I am asked to onboard them to Office 365.

I have decided to write a series on Onboarding Office 365
There will a series of articles which I will write and share as I go along.

1. Add and configure domains
2. Activate Active Directory synchronization

Onboarding Office 365 Series: Add and configure domains

Page under construction. Please visit following useful links to get you started.


Domains
Video: Add your domain to Office 365
Video: Verify your domain in Office 365
Confirm ownership of your custom domain name

How to send Ctrl+Alt+Del on Remote Desktop

I was connected to a remote box using Windows Remote Desktop and wanted to change my password. Easiest way to do this is to press Ctrl + Alt +Delete key sequences but on the remote computer you cannot because your local client will pick this key combination and give you options on your local box.

The way to do it on remote client is to press CTRL + ALT + END and that should solve your problem.

Migrate OneDrive for Business SharePoint Online

I am working for a client who needs to migrate their existing tenant say https://existingtenant.sharepoint.com to a new tenant say https://newtenant.sharepoint.com

Migration is not a problem partly because I am using a very easy to use tool ShareGate and partly because my client has a very standard out of the box kind of SharePoint implementation.

One of the very important tasks is to migrate all the One Drive for Business data of over 200 existing users. I didnt know that it could get so tricky. I was under the impression that it will be as simple as migrating other site collections using the tool.

Before we proceed

There are a few things that you need to know about OneDrive for Business for SharePoint Online

1. Its My Site which enables user to store and share documents just like any other document storage and sharing tool out there for example DropBox but of course with much more features and flexibility that comes with SharePoint.

2. Its a users site collection and only users have access to their my.sharepoint.com site.

3. Even tenant administrators dont have access to users' OneDrive. Users are sole site administrators of their OneDrive

4. OneDrive is not like your emails which is available as soon as a new user gets created. It needs to be first provisioned before it can be used.

5. You cannot migrate OneDrive from a "existingtenant" to a "newtenant" unless you have administrative rights on each of OneDrive on users on both the tenants.

As you can see I have following problems to solve

1. Pre-provision all the users (200+) on the new tenant.

2. Get administrative rights on all the users on both the tenants.

3. Migrate all the users' OneDrive

ShareGate helped me fair bit by letting me become administrator of all the users on both the tenants with just a few click. But this does not solve my problem because the original problem of provisioning the sites and bulk migration was still outstanding.

1. Pre-provision all the users

After a bit of googling I got hold of a very useful script by Microsoft which helped me provision all my users. Details and all the required explanation here. Keep following in mind

1. webUrl should be your -admin.sharepoint.com
2. Your user should have Global Administrator rights
3. Run Windows PowerShell as Administrator.
4. Microsoft.SharePoint.Client, Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime and Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.UserProfiles can be found here.
5. I didnt setup SharePoint Online Management Shell.

Once I got all the users provisioned I had to find a way to verify if the script ran successfully and I found a useful link which helped me verify that all my OneDrive for Business are provisioned. I also randomly accessed a few users' OneDrive to verify the case.

2. Get administrative rights

I got my first problem solved. My next step was to be able give my Administrator full access to each users' OneDrive. I am assuming that you dont have access to ShareGate and you have to do it yourself.
Following is what I see when I log in as one of the users and access OneDrive.
Click on Site Settings> Site collection administrators under Users and Permissions and you will see that current logged in user is the only administrator of her OneDrive (which we have already talked about)

To give yourself administrative rights on each of the OneDrive sites you need to perform the following actions
1. Get SharePoint Online Management Shell. There are a lot of things that you need to take care of as suggested by Microsoft. Get yourself accustomed before trying any of this all. Download SharePoint Management Shell from here.
2. Run Shell as administrator and connect to your tenant using the command
Connect-SPOService
Make sure you put it -admin.sharepoint.com part when prompted for Url.
3. Put in your admin user and password and asked.

 4. Create a new .ps1 file using the following script

 5. Run the script using SharePoint Online Management Shell by first pointing to the destination folder where you have stored this file.
I have named my script file AccessRights.ps1

As you know that I had 4 users I see four times the message that my administrator is added to each users site.

Your administrator is now a Site Collection Administrator on all the users on your newtenant.sharepoint.com. Make sure you repeat this process on existingtenant.sharepoint.com

3. Migrate all the users' OneDrive
I am planning to use ShareGate to migrate user's OneDrive. If I get a script to do it for me I will post it here.

Happy migrating. 

Change color of Suite Bar in SharePoint Office 365

It took me a while to know that the top nav bar in Office 365 is called Suite Bar. The next thing I needed to know is how to change the color because the customer I am working for these days wants their branded color to be applied across the site collections. There are couple of ways to get the job done but lets stick to the most simplest one.

If you notice my suite bar color is not the default one and I have already changed it. To get the job done you need to be Administrator to perform the following actions.

1. Click Admin and then click Office 365

2. Once you are on your portal site click the name of your company on the top right corner of the page.

3. You will land on Company profile page. Click on Custom theming and change Accent color to change Suite bar color.  (Note: It will take some time to get your changes applied across sites implies all the sites are using default theme.

Creating Views based on Dates

I wanted to create a View on my custom list in SharePoint Online showing me data for last 7 days.
I initially though that it will be as simple as selecting my Date column and selecting options like "is greater than" or "is less than" but to my amaze it does not work like this.

Simply put if you want to create views based on days (Last 7 days, Last 30 days) following is how you do it 

Creating views using workflow status column in SharePoint 2010

It took me by surprise when I created a view on my list based on workflow status that it does not work. I wanted to create a "In Progress" view for my list which had workflows running on it. After some searching I came to know that what you see is NOT what you get.

We all know that a workflow can be in my states. Following is the list of common workflow states and what unique number SharePoint 2010 assigns them.

Workflow Status	SharePoint Id
Not Started	0
Failed On Start	1
In Progress	2
Error Occurred	3
Stopped by User	4
Completed	5
Cancelled	15
Approved	16
Rejected	17

Here is how you create a view on SharePoint 2010 on a list with workflows

1. Choose a list (it also works the same on document library but I have using list to demonstrate it) on which you want to create views and select List Settings using List tab from your ribbon

2. Scroll down until you see Create View link under Views section

3. Select your format

3. On Create View screen, name this view and scroll down to Filter section and select your Workflow name from "Show the items when column" drop down.

4. Select "is equal to"

5. Put a number in the text field depending on what view you are creating. Pick a number from table given above to create a particular view.

6. Click OK.

7. You can view all your views.

Happy viewing

Remove and Add Title column from Content Types in SharePoint 2010

I was working on content types today and realized that SharePoint 2010 is forcing me to use Title Column which I didn't require. I wanted to remove this column but unlike other columns I added, I could not see Remove button.

Custom Column in Content Type with Remove Button

 Content Type Title Column without Remove Button

I googled for it and got to a post (just like you did) to be able to remove Title Column.

Steps to perform
1. Open SharePoint 2010 Management Shell by click Start > All Programs > Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products > SharePoint 2010 Management Shell right click and Run as Administrator
2. Run the following script

$web = Geb-SPWeb http://YOURPORTAL

$ct = $web.ContentTypes["YOUR CONTENT TYPE"] 

$spFieldLink = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFieldLink ($web.Fields["Title"])

$ct.FieldLinks.Delete($spFieldLink.Id)

$ct.Update()

$web.Dispose()

Note: Always test the script on Staging / Test environment before running it on your Production environment.
You also need to understand that removing this column will not remove it from any of the lists/libraries that are using this column.

A little later I realized that I wanted this column back so I ran the following to get it back.

$web = Geb-SPWeb http://YOURPORTAL

$ct = $web.ContentTypes["YOUR CONTENT TYPE"] 

$spFieldLink = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFieldLink ($web.Fields["Title"])

$ct.FieldLinks.Add($spFieldLink)

$ct.Update()

$web.Dispose()

Thank you Phil Childs for pointing me to right direction

Office Web Apps in Office 365

Microsoft Office Web Apps is a web-based version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. It includes the web-based version of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft OneNote. The web applications allow users to access their documents directly from anywhere within a web browser as well as share files and collaborate with other users online. Supported web browsers include Internet Explorer 7 or later, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or later, Google Chrome, and Safari 4 [wikipedia]

Although Office Web Apps is a very useful feature but I cannot demonstrate it to you because I am on a E1 plan.

You can get details of Office 365 plans from here.

I think this is the whole point on this blog ~ you cannot edit your documents inside a browser if you don't have the right plan so instead of trying to figure out how to Office Web App, first check your plan details.

Announcement List in Publishing Sites

It was kind of strange to learn that I cannot create an Announcement List or a Discussion Board while on my Publishing site.

Don't worry, we have a cure now.

Go go Site Actions > Site Settings. Click Manage site features under Site Actions.

Check if Team Collaboration Lists feature is activated or not. Activate it and you will have collaboration features enabled on your publishing site.

You can always set them off by deactivating this feature.

Happy team collaborating.

Save Site as Template for Publishing Sites

Today we celebrated Nick's birthday while I was working on Content Types, Document Libraries and Publishing Site features on my Office 365 SharePoint 2010 Online version.

I thought that creating site templates will be a piece of cake for me and it will be much tastier than the one I just had. But as it turned out, and as Aurelien puts it "not a piece of cake".

I was trying to create a site template for Publishing Site in SharePoint 2010 and I realized that I cannot.

Ofcourse there is a workaround.

Once you have all the customizations you want to have, go to Site Actions > Site Settings

Click Manage site features under Site Actions 

and Deactivate SharePoint Server Publishing feature.

Clicking Deactivate will take you to Warning page, click Deactivate this feature. (Dont worry, you can always re-activate it again and no love is lost)

Go back to Site Settings page and now you will see Save site as template under Site Actions

Now save this site as a template by giving it a File Name, Template Name and options Template Description.

If you want to have the content that you uploaded in document libraries or items in lists part of your template so they can be used again, click Include Content check box. Click OK to save your site template.

Site Templates in SharePoint 2010 are not .STP files any more  Moreover they are not in Site Template Gallery like MOSS 2007. Site Templates are .WSP files stored in Solution Gallery like features and webparts.

As you have already created your site template, it is of no use until you activate this template. Click Site Actions> Site Settings again.

and click Solutions under Galleries

You will see your site template. If its not already activated, activate it. Go back to your original site and enable SharePoint Publishing feature again.

Create a new site by click Site Actions> New Site. Select Blank & Custom from Categories and select your hot,  freshly baked template straight from the oven. Set a Title and decide on a URL.

Click Create.

Aaaannnnnnnnd you are done. Wooow not so fast. Remember you deactivated Publishing Feature to create this site template and as this site is created from a deactivated publishing feature site template, you have to enable it to get publishing features.

This is a very good article which gives you an idea of what you get and what you are missing if you create a site from site template.

Invite External Users in SharePoint 2010 Online & Office 365 Step By Step

There comes a time in every site collections' life that you need to give external users access to your SharePoint 2010 Online site.

Giving access to external users is easy.

Go to your site collection and click Site Actions > Share Site

If you see Invitation to users outside your organization are currently disabled, do not worry, you are making good progress.

You first need to allow external users access to your site collections and you do this by Allowing External Users from Manage site collections page on your Sharepoint 2010 Online portal.

Note: You need to have appropriate rights to perform this operation.

Once on Manage Site Collections page, click Manage External Users under Settings button on the ribbon.

Remember not to select any site collection or Settings button will be disabled.

On the Manage External Users pop out, select Allow and press Save button.

Why are you in so much hurry? There is still one more configuration step that you need to perform. You need to enable External user invitations feature on your site collection.

Once your External users invitations feature is activated, you can perform the same steps you performed earlier to share your site with others. You got it right, Site Action > Share Site

Oops, I forgot to tell you that to activate a feature you need to go to the Features page which can be accessed by clicking Site Action > Site Settings. Look for Site collection features under Site Collection Administration and click it.

Gotchas

Your external user email address needs to be a Microsoft Online Services ID or a Windows Live ID like @live, @hotmail, @msn. If your partner does not have above mentioned id, they can always associate their ids with above services to access your shared site.

But how can they associate their ids to above services?

Do not worry, SharePoint 2010 Online already has a user friendly solution for this. Remember, you gave access to your external users by sending them an email :) 

Watchout 

I have already posted a question and to date waiting for a reply.

Office 365 and SharePoint 2010 Online Administration

It took me by surprise that there is no Central Administration in SharePoint 2010 Online but when the dust settled, I realized that this should be the case.

Anyways if there is no Administration, how can I access and do my configuration/administration was still a question to be answered.

With appropriate access rights, I visited my portal i.e. https://portal.microsoftonline.com and clicked Admin from top rightish corner of my browser.

Once on the Admin page, you will see Manage link under SharePoint heading (implies you have appropriate access rights)

Clicking on the Manage link takes you to the limited services that SharePoint 2010 Online offers.

Enjoy