Configure FAST Search Server for KnowledgeLake Imaging 4.4

After a correct installation of FAST Search Server there are a few items to validate before moving forward (FAST Installation guide Please follow this guide and ensure that you have).
Before beginning the KnowledgeLake Imaging installation check that the Web Application is set to use the FAST Query SSA. To check this start at Central Administration -> Application Management -> Service Application Associations. Then select the Web Application that you want to use FAST Search on.
Rather than leaving the dropdown at default change it to custom. This will allow you to select only the exact Applications you want running on your Web Application.

Then select all the checkboxes appropriate for the Web Application but make sure to NOT check Search Service Application. And be sure to check FAST Query SSA. Additionally, click the ‘set as default’ link to set FAST as the default Search Service Application Proxy.

At this point it is important to note that the “normal” instructions for setting up Imaging 4.4.2 will be loosely followed. I will attempt to make this as thorough as I can to follow. Additionally the two Service Applications created for FAST will be referenced as either FAST Connect or FAST Query from now on. After the installation of FAST there are some pre-installation tasks for KnowledgeLake Imaging.
· From SharePoint Central Administration go to Manage Service Applications.

• Click on FAST Query SSA
• Click on FAST Search Administration
• This will probably be a new screen to users not familiar with FAST.

• Click on Managed Properties
• Click on Add Managed Property

Now the top section should look very familiar. So following the Imaging Admin Guide enter the Property name owsContentType

In the next section Type you can leave the default values

In the next section you need to add a mapping to he ows_ContentType. This is almost identical to the normal SharePoint Managed Properties mapping but has the ability to add more than one selected crawl properties at one time.

Click OK
Leave the Sort Property unchecked
On Query Property make sure to check the box. This insures that the KnowledgeLake Search Center can provide the property in the results column or as a search property.
Leave the Refiner property unchecked
On the Full-text Index Mapping section….It is very important to select a number between 1-7 as a priority mapping. If you leave the default value at zero it will not populate the Index. Considering this is a fairly important property in the KnowledgeLake Search Center I suggest using the priority of 6.

Then click OK
In the next section of the KnowledgeLake Imaging Admin guide it requires you to visit the Categories section and make a change to the SharePoint category so that all newly discovered properties are automatically added. This is set by default in FAST

Run a full crawl with the FAST Content Service Application.
After the crawl is complete run the following PowerShell in the Microsoft FAST PowerShell

Get-FASTSearchMetadataFullTextIndexMapping
The result should provide this in the resulting feed

SharePoint Integration Kit

Opalis has built-in Integration Packs and the ability to utilized custom Integration Packs. An Integration Pack has been created for SharePoint and is available at http://opalis.codeplex.com. After installing the Integration Pack using the steps provided previously it is necessary to configure the SharePoint Integration Pack. Start by selection Options from the top menu and select Microsoft SharePoint (see Figure 9-40). After selecting that option the Configuration Window opens (see Figure 9-41). Click Add to enter the specifics about what SharePoint environment that this configuration should connect to. Every configuration can be different logins, different lists or document libraries, or different web url’s (see Figure 9-42).

Figure 9-40 Microsoft SharePoint configuration selection for the Microsoft SharePoint Integration Pack.

Figure 9-41 Microsoft SharePoint configurations defined in Opalis.

Figure 9-42 An individual Microsoft SharePoint configuration for Opalis.

Database sizes into a SharePoint List

Over the years I have received many requests from different levels of management and normally the more difficult ones have the biggest priority. I recall an issue with another group’s database that was consistently causing issues because they were getting too large and were not being monitored correctly. So the question came up as to how do we get all the databases and their sizes provided to management on a daily basis? Normally this requires some manual intervention in Excel or providing access to the administration tools in the datacenter or the DBA’s tools. Providing ODBC access in Excel or Access has the potential to expose the username and password. What if on a daily basis, or even hourly, Opalis queried all the databases and populated a SharePoint list that could be provided to anyone? This would remove any security concerns and alleviates another request.

Start by creating a new Policy and drag a Query Database object from the utilities section. Then enter a simple query to get the top 100 databases from the master databases and get the size into Megabytes (see Figure 9-42). Finally, define the connection and security credentials.

/** Select the databases from the master database**/

SELECT TOP (100) name, (size*8)/1024 SizeMB

FROM sys.master_files

Figure 9-42 Query Database object properties displaying the SQL statement.

Now drag a Create List Item object from the Microsoft SharePoint section of objects and drag a link from the Query Database object to the Create List Item object (see Figure 9-43).

Figure 9-43 Connecting objects in Opalis.

Double-click the Create List Item object to open the properties dialog. Under Configuration set the name to SharePoint Database List. This queries SharePoint and provides the Title field. Click Optional Properties to add-in the Size MB field and select to move to the Selected column (see Figure 9-44).

Figure 9-44 Adding properties available to a SharePoint Create List Item.

To configure the field mapping it takes a little more configuring so since it known that the SQL Query is going to return two fields separated by a semicolon it is possible to use the following function (see Figure 9-45).

Figure 9-45 Data manipulation function inside Opalis.

The function passes in the familiar Full line as a string with fields separated by ‘;’ and passes in a delimiter and requests the first value from the pair. The field for the Size MB is similar but requests the second value. The final result looks like Figure 9-46.

Figure 9-46 Create List Item properties showing two fields populated.

From this point it is possible to run a Test on this policy and populate the database. Figure 9-47 shows the Policy running. Figure 9-48 shows the SharePoint list being populated.

Figure 9-47 Policy populating a SharePoint list from the Policy Testing Console.

Figure 9-48 SharePoint list populated with values from Opalis.

Launch of new site!

Sorry for the long delay between posts but I have been incredibly busy! My latest public project is the release of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana's public and member website converted to SharePoint 2007. This was under a pretty tight time line considering the amount of work involved. But I believe the end result is more than worth the effort! I was the architect/lead developer on the project. I am incredibly thankful for the effort of my team for all their input, assistance and hard work.

http://www.bcbsla.com

Submitting items to a SharePoint list like Twitter

Here is a sample I did that shows how to user a very click set of javascript combined with JQuery to make submitting items to a list function from one page.

Here is the cool javascript link!

Access Denied

Getting Access Denied when Web Site permissions have been removed then re-added. Turns out Microsoft has a fix for that. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945089

List of issues that are fixed

This hotfix fixes the following issue that was not previously documented in a Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

• On a SharePoint Server page, you try to access Site Collection Policies by clicking Site Collection Policies under the Site Collection Administration section on the Site Settings page. In this case, you may receive the following error message:
  Error: Access Denied
  This issue occurs after you clear the Apply Style Sheets - Apply a style sheet (.CSS file) to the Web site check box on the User Permissions for Web Application page for a Web application.

SharePoint Distribution List Nightmares

So now that you finally get your enterprise rolling with SharePoint you are bound to start getting request to include Distribution Lists in Alerts & Workflows.

Well....guess what. You can't.

Since all security for SharePoint is designed around users and security groups it is impossible(not really but completely unusable) to add a Distribution List access to a SharePoint site. And that is the part to keep in mind. Why would you add a Distribution List full of users that cannot even access the site??? So that means you just move them all to a new Security Group and you are up and running. HA!
That is only the beginning!

After the new Security Groups are setup then you need email addresses for these new groups. Well now it should work right? Still no.
All the new groups need to be set as Universal Groups from MS "Mail-enabled non-universal groups are de-emphasized in Exchange 2007 and can only exist if they were migrated from previous versions of Exchange. You cannot use Exchange 2007 to create new non-universal distribution groups."

Then guess what! The exchange admin has to go in via Management Shell interface and email-enable this new group In Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, you can create or mail-enable only universal distribution groups.
Then specify Enable-DistribuitionGroup -Identity

You can see in this sample image that a non-universal group cannot be email enabled.














Now that all that is completed you are ready to go right! You wish!
Now you need to go into your Shared Services Administration under Central Admin.

It is EXTREMELY important to pay particular attention to you naming conventions in the newly created email-enabled Security Groups.

Under the SSP that is responsible for User Profiles select "User profiles and properties."
Select the link next to "Import Source." Mine says "Custom Source" since I am crawling multiple domains.











Then you need to select "View Import Connections" from the Source section.





At that point Edit the connection for the domain that has the newly created groups.
The trick now is that your basic User Filter is only pulling in user accounts. You need to modify it so it also will pull in all the newly created Email-Enabled Security Groups but ONLY the newly created Email-Enabled Security Groups. You absolutely do not want to just pull in all the groups across your entire Active Directory into SharePoint!

The default LDAP query looks like this (&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User))

If your new naming convention preceded each group with SP.DL.
(Remember I said this was going to be important!)

It needs to be modified to (|(&(objectCategory=group)(cn=sp.dl*))(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectCategory=User)))

Hit Ok and return to User Profiles and Properties and select "Start full import." After you have finished you can visit "View user profiles" and search for your new groups.

At that point you are finally ready to start "using" Distribution Lists in SharePoint!