Reports (SSRS) not working after migration to SharePoint 2013

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Things are so busy! I'm still in the process of migrating to 2013. It's a slow process but we are getting there. The homepage looks crappy but in saying that, it's still no better or worse than the original. Keeping things OOB can be tough to be honest. I am trying to configure Apps at the mo to download some killer apps from the SharePoint App Store so watch this space...

Anyway, I did get a problem the other day when migrating a site over that had some reports in it, SSRS reports. When I tried to open them, I was getting an error with loads of information on it!

Error: For more information about this error, navigate to the report server on the local server machine or enable remote errors.

After a few days of soul searching (soul destroying), we got to the bottom of it. Well, not really. What I did was simply download the reports and upload them again. Obviously the connection info in any data sources would need to be updated but the re-upload worked. Simples. :)

Import-SPWeb: The directory does not exist

So you've exported a site or list and then when attempting to Import it again, you get an error saying that the directory you are importing from does not exist. WTF, right?

My error is below:

Import-SPWeb : The directory D:\Test\Test.cmp does not exist.
At line:1 char:1
+ Import-SPWeb -identity http://testsite -Path "D:\Test\Test.cmp"
-NoFi ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (Microsoft.Share...CmdletImportWeb:
   SPCmdletImportWeb) [Import-SPWeb], SPException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPCmdletImportWe
   b

So I ran the export from Central Administration but I did say to include all versions. I did not check the user security box (which in reality I should have done!), but the problem here was that I did not have FileCompression on in the export from Central Admin. I added that switch to the cmdlet. So the Import would not work for that reason. I tried running:

Import-SPWeb -identity -Path -NoFileCompression

Simply removing -NoFileCompression solved the issue and it imported.

Little road block that might annoy you!! :)

Workflow firing twice after migration

So after migrating to 2013, a workflow was firing twice! It was driving me bananas. So I re-created the workflow entirely and stopped the old one from firing.

But people were still getting emails twice. It was strange. But in order to get rid of this, I went into the Library menu and went to "Workflow Settings" and from there, I could see several instances of the workflows between migrating and the 2 that I had setup. So you can remove them from in there easily by clicking on the remove link!

Sorted :)

Cannot access site collection after migrating to SharePoint 2013

I had a few successful migrations under my belt to 2013. I had 4-5 site collections successfully moved. These were site collections that weren't used much in 2010 or that I knew weren't being updated.

So when I started moving some live site collections over, I couldn't rely on the users to avoid updating content during the process. So I put a lock on the site collection before moving it to ensure of this.

After migrating to 2013, I couldn't get access to it at all! I wasn't sure what was going on, assuming it was permissions based or something got to do with the move from Classic based authentication to Claims! But I had all that figured out before so I couldn't understand what was going on.

Low and behold, I ended up taking the lock off the original site collection and performing the back up then. And it worked. No errors, no problems, no issues.

So, moral of the story, don't waste 2 working days by putting a lock on your site before moving!!!! Back it up and then put the lock on it!

Hope this helps!

SharePoint 2013: Profile Pictures not showing in Custom List

When I migrated my first site over to 2013, it had a custom list displaying on the homepage with pictures of people in that particular department. After the move, the pictures weren't displaying. Lovely. The first thing I did was to delete the items and try adding them again but this didn't work. It turned out that deleting the list and re-creating the list worked for me. However, there are some considerations around this that you may need to ensure of on your settings.

If your pictures aren't showing up, the first thing that you should check is whether or not they are being propgated over to the site collection from the MySite Web App. You can do so by browsing to the User Information List on your troublesome site collection.

http:///_catalogs/users/detail.aspx

The above will show a detailed list of all of the users that have been propogated to your site. Check to see if they have pictures correctly. If they do, then re-creating your custom list app should hopefully work.

If your pictures are not showing there, then we need to look at your User Profile Service Application! Woop a deee dooo dahh! Don't you just love it? After over 2 years of working with it, I am quite comfortable with the ins and outs but that's just with trial and error.

So, go to your Central Administration Site. Under "Application Management", click on "Manage Service Applications" and select "User Profile Service Application".

When in there, click on "Manage User Properties", scroll down to find the Picture property and hover over it, click on the arrow and select "Edit".

About half way down the page, there is an option under policy settings for "Replicable". Make sure that this is ticked.

Now, it may take 24 or even 48 hours but this should replicate your pictures to your User Information List on each and every site collection. Ensure that your profile sync is running!!!

I hope this helps. If anyone has any questions on Provisioning the User Profile Service Application or any part of this, please comment below :)

SharePoint 2013: Removing Links (SkyDrive/Newsfeed/Follow/Sync/Share and Edit links)

There are some links on SharePoint 2013 that may not be required by your company and could potentially cause confusion for your users. There are ways to hide these links using Javascript but I propose editing your master page. 2 years ago, if I came across this post about editing my masterpages, I would have ran for the hills! I didn't understand it so I didn't go near it. But editing your masterpage is simple, this will not have any negative affects on your users either as we are going to create a copy of your master page and test it out on a test site collection or a dev environment. Do not publish a master page to your live site without testing it! I will not be responsible!!! :)

Hiding the Newsfeed/Skydrive/Sites links

Social side of things might not be ready to be launched in your company OR they might not be something that you particularly want or require. So you might want to hide these options for now. These links are called DeltaSuiteLinks. To hide them, you just need to comment out a piece of code in your master page. Again, copy copy copy the original!!!!

1. Create a copy of your master page by clicking on the wheel on the top right of your page and going to "Site Settings"
2. Under "Web Designer Galleries", click on "Master Pages"
3. Find your master page, by default, this is usually seattle.master
4. Click on this and select "Download a Copy", you can download a copy to your machine if you like
5. Right click on this file on your machine and choose "Edit", this may open in Notepad but you can certainly edit this in any editor of your choice.
6. You then need to comment out the following block of code. My code below is already commented
7. Save your changes.
8. Then follow steps 1-2 above and upload your new master page to it
9. Click on the ellipses beside the file and choose "Publish a Major Version"
10. Click on the ellipses again and choose "Approve/Reject" and then approve this master page.
11. Then you need to enable this on your live site, you can do this by going to Site Settings again and under "Look and Feel", select "Master Page"
12. Select your new master page name from the dropdown menu on both areas and click ok!
13. Hey presto, those links are now gone. I will be looking into how to replace these with your own links as it does leave a nasty white space :)

Hiding the "Edit Links" option from the Global Navigation
Let's face it, you don't want to give people too much power do you? Editing links on the Global Nav to me and our business anyway, it's a big no no. Users have very little control over this kind of thing. They can edit their content, but they cannot do something like edit the Global Nav! Are you crazy!?

Anyway, this is easy, you just need to add a little bit of code to your master page and follow the steps in the section above to publish it. You need to follow steps 1-5, then add the code below and then follow steps 7-13 to implement it :)

Hiding the "Share/Follow/Sync" Commands
These lovely things are called the "PromotedActions". Again if you are not ready to go hell for leather on the social thing, you might want to hide these. Follow my steps in the first section again from 1-5 and then comment out the code below, then follow steps 7-13! Hey presto! :) :)

Good luck! I didn't run into any problems with this but please comment below if you have any issues, it may help someone else. Also, I will be updating with a new post shortly about how to put your own DeltaSuiteLinks in instead! :) Happy SharePoint :) :)



Your storage quota has been research for the specified site collection or library

The above email generally gets sent when a quota is being reached on a site collection.

Why would you implement quotas?
Wheter we like it or not, SharePoint is still a document repository and will still have your characteristic dumping grounds that are typical with any company. Implementing quotas allows you to be aware of who is using what and why! As part of my role, I am also a Data Manager in the company so it's my job to understand where data is being stored and why certain data is being kept.

So, by implementing quotas it means that you stay in control of the situation. You can increase the limit on the quotas sporadically if you need do, thus being in the "know".

Anyway, when you hit that quota, you will get the message above. All you have to do is:

1) Browse to Central Admin
2) Click on "Application Management"
3) Click on "Configure Quotas and Locks"
4) Select your Site Collection in the drop down box
5) Change the quota or increase as necessary.

The problem with this as well is that when you assign a quota to a site collection, the corresponding content database will also be assigned that storage so please be careful when it comes to your SQL assignment here.

Happy Quotas!!! :)