Installing Share Point 2010 on Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Prerequisites

If you will be installing the SharePoint Server 2010 Public Beta on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or Microsoft Windows 7, then you will need to download and install an update from http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=23806  to resolve an issue that occurs in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 when provisioning Service Applications or when accessing pages that make service calls.  Without the hotfix, these operations will result in an error "System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Unrecognized attribute 'allowInsecureTransport'. Note that attribute names are case-sensitive. (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebClients\<Service Area>\client.config line <Line Number>)". 

If you have already installed Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 on a server running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 does not need to be reinstalled when the update becomes available; however, Service Applications that have been successfully provisioned without the update installed may need to be removed and re-provisioned once the update has been successfully applied

What’s New In Performance Point 2010

With the Release of the First Beta of Performance Point 2010 I came across an Article that Describes what’s new in PPS 2010 so I decided to Chare it here

Items that have been removed from PPS 2010:

• PPS repository – has now been transitioned into SharePoint (along with versioning)
• Preview site – items will simply be deployed to SharePoint now
• ODBC data source – will need to leverage SharePoint BDC (BCS in 2010) to get at this data (including Oracle now), create your own data source, or use Linked Server
• OWC – long over due, so this brings the end to the PivotChart, PivotTable, Trending Chart – replacement will be Excel Services and data mining functionality in Excel
• Planning – last update was the recent SP3 release for PPS 2007
• Preview button in analytic reports during design time – access this through the right-click menu now

Items that have been added in PPS 2010:

• PPS as a SharePoint Service just like Excel (and now Visio and Access)
• Leverage SharePoint security – no additional PPS security anymore, permissions have been removed from the properties tab and no more PPS roles
• SharePoint versioning – not separate anymore
• Authentication security for data sources – security not global anymore in PPS, this can be configured at the data source level – if Farm option was chosen for SharePoint and still single server install then you will need to configure Kerberos if you want to use Per-User security option
• Decomposition tree – this can be accessed through right-click in analytical reports and scorecards (goes from left to right instead of top to bottom) and this leverages SilverLight functionality, includes data bars, ability to send slices into analytical items to further analyze or export to PowerPoint or Excel, and more that can only be demoed. Unable to currently select this as an initial content type item and Performance Maps still not included (except for ProClarity)
• Analytical Pie Charts – no longer have to use ProClarity for this
• Select measures – within Analytical items you will now be able to add and select additional measure if you want to incorporate them into an existing analytical report that has already be deployed that you are using in a dashboard.  Unable to save this change outside the dashboard designer, but you have this new ability which is really nice
• Drilling capability on the bottom axis of analytical items – now able to right-click on the bottom access members and drill down, drill up, drill to
• SSAS conditional formatting support (color and font aware) – ability to leverage the predefined conditional formatting that is setup in SSAS in analytical items and scorecards
• Enhanced scorecards – support for expand collapsing hierarchies on scorecards, additional filtering and sorting support (similar to Excel – select Top or Bottom N records), ability to place KPI names on columns or rows along with Actual/Target values, ability to have multiple actuals within a KPI and new feature to relate the values to each other now (connect them to each other), use multiple data sources in a single calculation
• KPI Details content type – ability to view metadata about a particular KPI like the person responsible, threshold information, banding, etc.
• Central Administration configuration – application settings are now done in application settings (like caching, default member limit – 5000 now instead of 500, but can be modified)
• Increased MUI support
• Filters – 1st class citizens now and are their own content type with ability to reuse across dashboards
• Streamlined deployment of dashboards – ability to simply deploy to SharePoint specifying the library and master page (no more five click deployment and then closing down the wizard when it is done…yeah!)
• Improved dimension support in Details section in Dashboard Designer – no longer a field list like Excel 2003.  This will be UDM aware and you will also be able to filter the list based off measure groups now also
• ‘Secure Store’ authorization (single sign-on) option
• PPS elements are now content type stored in SharePoint lists.  You will now need to maintain and arrange items accordingly in the workspace and lists to organize them (no longer separate Indicators, Data Sources, Reports, Scorecards, KPIs, Dashboards distribution
• Ability to use filters with other SharePoint web parts
• Ability to re-use and reference existing KPI values when setting up additional values (actual or targets) and then you can tweak them accordingly to help streamline the process
• Instead of Publish option you now have Save (Publish = Save)
• Instead of communicating with PPS web service URL you communicate with SharePoint site URL
• Ability to related the PPS web parts to other SharePoint parts so that they can interact with each other now (using the same framework now)

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 beta Get Ready

I heard from an MVP friend that Microsoft Release today the first beta for both SharePoint and Office 2010 this is a A great news for me co’s this means welcome to PPS 2010 era I waited for the beta to starting checking it out

Microsoft Performance Point SP3 Released !!! Finally :)

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 3 hits RTM on schedule and is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.

· Download sites: PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP3 (x86), PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP3 (x64)

· Documentation: Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, IW documentation is being published.

What’s New in SP3

Focused on the supportability of PerformancePoint Server 2007, Service Pack 3 offers not only a wide range of bug fixes but also a few new features and feature enhancements. For Planning customers, this release offers the following new features:

× Submitting line-item details with assignments. This new feature enables users to add, edit, view, and submit line item details. They can also view the submitted line-item details in reports.

× Adjusting security with the PPSCmd utility. This feature enables users to lower security changes within PPSCMD. For example, it is now possible to move security from Read/Write to Read Only within the PPSCMD utility.

× Extending the application calendar beyond 25 years. This feature enables users to manually change the maximum limit of future years to a value greater than 25 and less than or equal to 200.

For Monitoring & Analytics customers, SP3 offers improved usability, with better handling of zone adjustments, scrolling, and filtering and improved messaging. SP3 also provides better integration with Excel Services, SharePoint Server, and ProClarity.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP3 is being released in 18 languages (including English). The localized versions of PPS SP3 will be released by tier beginning in December, 2009. All versions are being released to the following channels:

· Microsoft Download Center. Localized versions of SP3 will be available beginning in December 09.

· Volume licensing (VL). The English version will be available in early December; localized products will be available in early January.

· MSDN. All languages are expected to be available by mid-December.

· ProductsWeb. All languages are expected to available within 4 weeks of the respective release dates.

ProClarity 6.3 SP3 was released on October 9 and is available on the Microsoft Download Center.

· Download sites: ProClarity Analytics Server 6.3 SP3 (ENU), ProClarity Desktop Professional 6.3 SP3 (ENU)

· ProClarity 6.3 SP3 documentation: ProClarity SP3 Readme and ProClarity SP3 Hardware and Software Requirements

ORA-12154 : TNS Could not resolve the connect Identifier

Accessing an Oracle DB over a 64 bit system was a pain for many SQL Server DBAs.
The purpose of this document is to explain how to fix issues running a SSIS package, Linked Server and SQL Agent which are using Oracle OLEDB under 64bit SQL Server 2008.

The Following solution is based on Oracle 11g version. You can download Oracle 11g client from http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/index.html

You will need 32bit and 64bit both Oracle clients.

Oracle Client & OLEDB component Installation steps in 64bit Windows:

1. If you have old Oracle clients, copy tnsnames.ora and sqlnet.ora files for backup. 
   (They are under %ORACLE_HOME%/network/ADMIN/.)
2. Uninstall & Delete previous version of Oracle client include installed directory. 
   If you have or ever installed Oracle client, uninstall them and reboot the server. Then you can delete old Oracle directory. If you don’t reboot, you cannot delete them. 
3. Run setup.exe of Oracle 11g Client in 64bit SQL Server running machine.
   You have to install 32bit first.
4. Select “Custom” for OLEDB component installation in "Select Installation Type" step. 
   

   

5. Properly select Oracle Base and Path. 
   

   

6. You must select “Oracle Windows Interfaces 11.x.x” component for OLEDB in “Available Product Components” step. 
   

   

7. After installation, restore TNSNAMES.ORA backup file under the new location of %ORACLE_HOME%/network/admin folder.
8. Repeat above step #4-#7 with 64bit Oracle 11g Client setup.  
   Oracle "Base directory" is same as the 32bit, but Path is supposed to be different from the previous one in above step #5.  
   i.e) If Oracle 32bit Client Path was C:/Oracle/product/11.1/client_32, 
     Then 64bit Client Path is under C:/Oracle/product/11.1/client_64.
9. You will see an error message “OracleMTSRecoveryService already exists” as below screenshot during the 64bit client installation. You can “Ignore” it.

   

10. Modify the system registry settings as follows. And then reboot server! 
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSDTC\MTxOCI     and 
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSDTC\MTxOCI 
    are correct: 
    a. OracleOciLib = oci.dll 
    b. OracleSqlLib = orasql11.dll   (old: SQLLib80.dll) 
    c. OracleXaLib = oraclient11.dll  (old: xa80.dll) 
11. Test sqlplus.exe or tnsping.exe in command console.

Now you can access Oracle OLEDB provider in BIDS (Business Intelligence Development Studio) & SSMS both places. What I tested was:

• Design SSIS package with Oracle data source (OraOLEDB) in BIDS
• SSIS package debug & run in BIDS
• C# & VB sample code test to access OraOLEDB.Oracle provider in VisualStudio
• Add the developed SSIS package & run on SSMS
• Add SSIS package job in SQL Agent & run on SSMS
• Add Linked Server to access Oracle Server through Oracle OLEDB in SSMS

One thing you have to keep in mind is that BIDS is based on Visual Studio 32bit modules. When you design & test a new SSIS package on it, actually it’s using 32bit Oracle OLEDB modules. 
After the SSIS package added in 64bit SQL Server, SQL Agent is using 64bit Microsoft & Oracle OLEDB modules.

NOTE1:

While you are developing or testing SSIS package, you might see the following ignorable messages:  “Warning: Cannot retrieve the column code page info from OLE DB…”.

NOTE2:

When you add new SSIS package in SQL server, you have to select “Rely on server storage and roles for access control” in Package Protection Level as below screenshot to avoid XML password encryption error. For some reason, saved Oracle password couldn’t be decrypted by SSIS service on my test.

NOTE3:

You might see the following error “Cannot obtain the required interface (“IID_IDBSchemaRowset”) from OLE DB Provider “OraOLEDB.Oracle” for linked server XXX (Error:7399)” in an Oracle Linked Servers as follows.

To resolve this, open properties of OraOLEDB.Oracle provider, and set “Enable” for “Allow inprocess” option as follows.

Instance>>Sever Objects>>Linked Servers>>Providers>>OraOLEDB.Oracle

Microsoft Reporting Services in Silverlight Applications is Possible

 

The main obstacle to the spread of Microsoft Silverlight as a platform for line-of-business RIA’s is the lack of built-in reporting components. At the same time, not a single corporate application can function without effective reporting system.

Perpetuum Software allows you to combine two powerful Microsoft technologies: Silverlight and Reporting Services, so that you can leverage their advantages in your business intelligence applications.

Silverlight Viewer for Reporting Services provides you the ability to view Reporting Services reports in Silverlight applications. The component is a native Silverlight control and it easily integrates into any Silverlight application. Thus, it is possible to use the entire set of features which are, as a rule, available in the original desktop applications, including dynamic scaling, smooth panning with animation, interactive sorting, search and so on.

Silverlight Viewer can be used in applications, located directly on the html page, as well as the out-of-browser mode.

Delicate setup of viewer appearance with the use of styles and templates allows the inclusion of the component into the design of any application. All aspects of the Silverlight Viewer component behavior can be controlled from the code.

The user will view only the necessary report pages without loading the entire report. This feature provides quick reporting while reducing internet traffic Fonts will be loaded automatically if they are not set on the client side.

The main competitive advantages of the Silverlight Viewer for Reporting Services are:

• WYSIWYG report preview in web browsers with support for scaling, scrolling, panning. The reports are displayed in vector graphic. The advantage is that it provides high quality report representation which is impossible to achieve when reports are converted to html;
• Out-of-browser mode;
• Abilities of the full-functional desktop applications: search, interactive sorting, dynamic zooming, navigation through the reports via hyperlinks, input of the report parameters by the user and so on;
• Smooth animation when you manipulate reports, no sudden changes on the display occur when you scroll, zoom in or out or navigate the report;
• Support for styles and skins allow the change of any control elements;
• Reports export to PDF, Excel, Html, Cvs, Xml, Mhtml, TIFF;
• Automatic font loading.

The current product version only supports MS Sql Reporting Services 2005. The support for MS Sql Reporting Services 2008 will be available in the next Silverlight Viewer for Reporting Services release.

Use the functionality of the Silverlight technology for displaying reports from Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services!

Download Silverlight Viewer for Reporting Services...

Error in Performance Point 2007

I was involved in a Project with Microsoft Performance Point 2007 that requires Integration with lot of PPS Web Service APIs and 3.5 Asp.NET Application

I logged most the issues I faced and I’d like to leave this thread as an open discussion thread to help other in there deployments and Development with PPS.

Below are a list of Issues and Fixes that will help you solve your problem.

Configuring PPS on Production Environment

1. Install PPS on the SharePoint Server

2. Configure PPS to Install Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint on the Moss Server

3. Please note the following Steps will be done on all Moss Servers in the production farm

a. Locate the web.config file for your SharePoint site, as well as the PerformancePoint Monitoring Designer web service and its Preview directory.

b. Use any text editor (or Visual Studio), and do a search/replace to replace all references to System.Web.Extensions 1.0.61025.0 to .Net's3.5.0.0.

c. Add the following line to your web.config under the <configuration> node:

<runtime> 

    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"> 

      <dependentAssembly> 

        <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Extensions" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" /> 

        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.61025.0" newVersion="3.5.0.0" /> 

      </dependentAssembly> 

    </assemblyBinding> 

</runtime>

Remember there are 3 web.configs that needs to change here:

i. under PPSMonitoring/WebService

ii. under PPSMonitoring/Preview

iii. SharePoint Site[MM1]

4. Open your SharePoint web.config for the current web application and find HTTPHandlers replace it with the following Set[MM2]

<httpHandlers>

<remove verb="GET,HEAD,POST" path="*" />

<add verb="GET,HEAD,POST" path="*" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPHttpHandler, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

<add verb="OPTIONS,PROPFIND,PUT,LOCK,UNLOCK,MOVE,COPY,GETLIB,PROPPATCH,MKCOL,DELETE,(GETSOURCE),(HEADSOURCE),(POSTSOURCE)" path="*" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPHttpHandler, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

<add verb="*" path="Reserved.ReportViewerWebControl.axd" type="Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.HttpHandler, Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />

<add verb="*" path="*.asmx" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />

<add verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />

<add verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" validate="false" />

<add verb="*" path="_vti_bin/ReportServer" type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.Soap.RSProxyHttpHandler, RSSharePointSoapProxy, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" />

<add verb="*" path="Reserved.ReportViewerWebPart.axd" type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI.WebParts.WebPartHttpHandler, Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.UI.WebParts, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91" />

</httpHandlers>

5. If you installed URL Scan in our production Environment (as in testing) you may face a problem on all Images are not Displayed in the PPS Dashboard Viewer WP The Solution would be the following

a. Open the following folder “C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\urlscan”

b. Edit URLScan.ini file

i. AllowDotsInPath = 0 to 1

6. Go to the following path in both SharePoint Servers

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\wpresources

Replace the content of the web.config with the following

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

<configuration>

<system.web>

<customErrors mode="Off"/>

<httpHandlers>

<add verb="*" path="*.aspx" type="System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory, System.Web, Version=1.0.5000.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />

<remove verb="*" path="*.asmx" />

<add verb="*" path="*.asmx" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />

<add verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />

<add verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" validate="false" />

</httpHandlers>

</system.web>

<runtime>

<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Extensions" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />

</dependentAssembly>

</assemblyBinding>

<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.OleDb" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.SoapPT" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.Sts" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.XmlUrl" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint.intl" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint.Library" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.SharePoint.Security" publicKeyToken="71e9bce111e9429c" culture="neutral" />

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="11.0.0.0" newVersion="12.0.0.0" />

</dependentAssembly>

</assemblyBinding>

</runtime>

</configuration>