What Should I Blog About Next?

Howdy!  I’ve been heads down the last couple of months and thought I’d take some time to write a post regarding something interesting I’ve done so that others might be able to benefit.  Here’s a short list of some of the topics I thought might be of interest to others.  Let me know if a topic interests you and I’ll put something together.

1.       Lazy Approval for SharePoint Workflows - Allow remote users to complete workflow tasks via email.

2.       How to Implement Roles in Browser Based InfoPath Forms - InfoPath Filler forms can use roles for rules.  Learn how you can do the same with browser based forms.

3.       Solution to Archive SharePoint Items - A generic solution that allows you to define rules for archiving items.

4.       Useful SharePoint PowerShell Scripts - Some of the scripts I use on a daily basis.

5.       Effective SharePoint Logging - Logging effectively helps when something bad happens in production.

6.       Efficient SharePoint Timer Job Development - How to structure your solution design to reduce time to market.

7.       Effective Use of SharePoint Property Bags - What we store in our property bags.

8.       Reverse Engineering SharePoint Sites - How to quickly get your lists, libraries, pages, etc. in to a Visual Studio project so that it can be deployed in all of your environments.

9.       Data Collection Workflows vs. Approval Workflows - The different types of workflows we develop and how to approach each.

10.   Parameterize Workflows to Reduce Time to Market - What do we parameterize so that common changes don't require development, test, deploy cycles.

11.   Using XSLT for Workflow Task Notification Emails  - How to dynamically define custom emails using XSLT including the Edit Task button in Outlook.

12.   How to Add Regular and Inline Attachments Emails - Sometimes users want attachments and signatures in their email notifications.

13.   Custom XSLT Functions - How to build your own library for special XSLT functions.

14.   Anti-Alert Solution - Sometimes users want to know when an item doesn't exist when it should.

15.   (Almost) No Code Meeting Sign-Up Solution - SharePoint Architects should first evaluate if an out of the box solution can be put together before jumping in to custom development.

Please respond and let me know which topic you'd like me to cover next.

 

Browser Based InfoPath Form for a Document Set

How to use custom InfoPath forms for SharePoint 2010 Document Sets

We've always been able to customize the NewForm.aspx, EditForm.asp and the DispForm.aspx and now, as you are probably aware, SharePoint 2010 provides the capability to modify Forms using InfoPath. 

This allows us to build much richer UI's for our lists including things like advanced validation and rules.  What you may not know is that this capability is not supported for Document Set content types.  I'm not sure why this wasn't included out of the box however we were able to create a custom solution to fill this gap. 

We did this by creating a custom content type which has custom NewDocSet.aspx and EditForm.aspx forms.  We then use the XmlFormView control to display our custom InfoPath form instead of using the DataForm web part. 

Some Implementation Details

• You can use the Node Attribute of the Field element in order to promote properties
• Since Document Sets do not support attachments we store the form XML in a Note field
• We used a List property to store a link to the current version of the InfoPath form
• We also used a List property to allow the administrator to configure which node is used for the name 
• The version of the InfoPath form that was used for creation is stored in the form XML in the "processing-instruction" section.  We use that value to load the correct InfoPath form