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.