I recently setup FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint 2010 and here are the documented steps:

• FAST Search Server was installed on a dedicated server different from SharePoint 2010 server.

• FAST Server was not installed on a domain controller.

• FAST Server was patched with latest windows update and windows update service was running.

• Used the Pre-requisite installer for FAST Server 2010 (available on the installation media) to install all required components for FAST Server 2010

• Identify the user who is running the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Timer Service (you will need this account to provide handshake between SharePoint 2010 Server and FAST 2010 Search Server)

• Configuring SSL enabled communicate is required when you setup Content SSA.

• Followed all step by step instructions mentioned in TechNet

Here are the high level steps that I followed from the article:

• Enable PowerShell scripts to run.

• Install FAST Search Server 2010.

• Configure a single server deployment.

• Setup the Content Search Service Application (SSA) – Content SSA is responsible for crawling content and feeding it into FAST Server for SharePoint back-end.

• Setup the Query Search Service Application – Query SSA fetches query results from the content that is crawled by the Content SSA.

• Configure claims authentication.

Once all the above steps are configured, check whether all FAST Search Server services are running by typing the following PowerShell command using Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint shell

nctrl status

You should see the output as shown in the screenshot below

Next step, is to Test FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint (TechNet article has all the detailed steps)

On your SharePoint 2010 server, check the association between FAST Query SSA and your web application by clicking on “Configure service application associations” available under “Application Management”. You can see “FAST Query SSA” associated with my web application below

Once the association is complete, perform a search query and you will see FAST Search server in action (assuming you have crawled the content sources using FAST Query SSA)

This screen shot shows the Crawl History for FAST Query SSA

Search query results using FAST Query SSA

Check out the refinements search on the left (Result Type, Site, Date)…  Pretty cool… right?

I was setting up some BDC models in SharePoint 2010 which involves managing authorization levels for BDC Metadata Store.

In Central Admin – BDC Service – Set Metadata Store Permissions

Add an user and the Permissions box will be populated with different authorization roles. Initially I couldn’t find any documentation on these roles.

So, after some digging around, here it is:

Edit – Create, delete, and Update metadata for BCS

Execute – Permission to make a call to an external system

Selectable in Clients – If you need to provide users with access to utilities like entity picker

Set Permissions – Gives the current user the ability to grant rights to other users.

Philadelphia SharePoint community holds SharePoint Saturday events once or twice per year. On May 8, 2010, it will be a full day of SharePoint.

My session covers BI features with SharePoint

http://www.tristatesharepoint.com/spsphilly/may2010/Lists/Sessions/DispForm.aspx?ID=17

The session will demonstrate BI capabilities of SharePoint that include dashboards, Visio services, excel services, Performance point, and new BI controls in SharePoint 2010.  I will walk the audience through the steps of creating KPIs, score cards and publishing them to SharePoint plus demonstrate SQL Server connected Visio diagrams. 

 See you there!

It's time again for another community presentation on SP 2010. I will be presenting SharePoint 2010 session at New Horizons, King of Prussia on April 15th, 2010 at 9:30am.

SharePoint 2010 Demo will cover Administration, ALM, VS 2010, Visual Web Parts, Visio Services, Business Intelligence Solutions with SP 2010, Document Library integration with Office 2010, and SPD 2010 plus Business Connectivity Services (BCS) demo will show you how to modify and integrate external LOB data.

In MOSS 2007, there was no possible way to browse unattached content database (excluding third party tools). SharePoint 2010 lets you browse a content database without attaching it to the farm. The following walkthrough will show you the steps to browse an unattached content database.

I will show you the steps to recover a list that was deleted from one of the site collections.

Here is my original list named “TKDemoList” consisting of 2 list items with attachments.

The list is deleted

Now, to recover the list. Go to Central Admin –> Backup and Restore –> Recover data from an unattached content database (under “Granular Backup”)

In the Unattached Content Database Recovery screen, fill in the information. WSSContentDemo is the backup copy of my original content database before the list was deleted.

In the Browse Content screen, pick the site collection, site and the List

You can also browse all sites by changing the site in the Site drop down list. The following shows the sites present in my site collection

In the Site or List Export, type in the filename (in the format of \\servername\sharename\filename.cmp)

Once the export is done, you can verify the job status. You can also browse to the folder where the cmp file is created to view the export log file.

The next step is importing the list into our site collection. We will use the mighty SharePoint Power Shell to do this. You have 2 options, you can either type in the Import-SPWeb command in the following format

Import-SPWeb -Identity <Site URL> -Path <Export file name> [-Force] [-NoFileCompression] [-Verbose]

(or) just Import-SPWeb and let it walk you through the steps

You can review the log file that is created and you will see all the list items and attachments restored. The screen shot shows the 2 documents that were imported.

Back to the site collection, you can view the TKDemoList that was restored.

I did notice that Import-SPWeb took a while to import 2 list items with a collective attachment size of 1.2 MB. It will be interesting to see the performance once the RTM product is out.

Time for Phillydotnet usergroup Code camp. We have a whole track dedicated to SharePoint. My session will cover sandboxed solutions development with SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Application Lifecycle management (ALM) using Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010.

As of this date, the registrations for Code camp is close to 500 participants. 12 different tracks.

Main Link: http://codecamp.phillydotnet.org/2010-1/default.aspx

Session Details: http://codecamp.phillydotnet.org/2010-1/Lists/Sessions/By%20Track.aspx

Join in and see you there!

I was setting up a demo to populate a Visio 2010 (Beta version) data diagram that reads data from a SQL Server table. I created the data connections in Visio, saved it as Web drawing and published to SharePoint 2010 successfully. But, when I go to view the Visio diagram on the web that is connected to SQL server table, the refresh did not work and an error cropped up "The server failed to process the request". It was baffling initially, since I had another Visio diagram talking to a SharePoint 2010 list working without any issues. Upon reviewing the event viewer, the following error message was logged "Credentials were not found for the current user within the target application 'VisioApplicationID'. Please set the credentials for the current user."

So, the fix is to navigate to Central Administration -- Manage Service Applications --  Visio Graphics Services -- Global Settings and check the Application ID

Go back to Manage Service Applications -- Secure Store Services -- select the visio application id -- Set credentials 

Once you set the username and password credentials, save and exit. This will fix the refresh and the visio graphics services error logged in the event viewer.

It's time again for another community presentation on SP 2010. I will be presenting 2 sessions at New Horizons, King of Prussia on Feb 4, 2010 -- SharePoint 2010 Preview and Business Intelligence (BI) with SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint 2010 will cover Administration, ALM, VS 2010, Visual Web Parts, Document Library integration with Office 2010, and SPD 2010.  I also have a BCS presentation that shows how to modify and integrate external LOB data.

On the BI session, it will be a combination of excel services, Performance point, Visio web services and BI controls in SP 2010.

If you are in Philadelphia area, you may want to consider attending a SharePoint 2010 Preview session at New Horizons Wayne office. I will presenting and showing you some of SP 2010 features. SP 2010 Administration, ALM, VS 2010, Visual Web Parts, Document Library integration with Office 2010, and SPD 2010.  I also have a BCS presentation that shows how to modify and integrate external LOB data.

See you there!

SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 and TFS 2010 Beta 2 Integration

Environment Setup:

Two different servers

• TFS 2010 Beta2 with SQL Server 2008 R2
• SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 with SQL Server 2008 SP1 with CU (My post on SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 installation has the exact KB number)

I could have just used one data tier, but I was playing with so many beta versions and wanted to see how SQL 2008 R2 worked against TFS 2010 Beta 2, so dedicated a separate instance. You can just use one common data tier for TFS & SP. In my case on the SQL 2008 R2 box, I had to configure Network protocols (SQL Configuration Manager) to enable TCP/IP & NetBios.

Note: Extensions for SharePoint installation option will show up only when SharePoint instance is found on the local server. If you pop in TFS 2010 Beta2 ISO file and carry on with the installation and don't see "Extensions for SharePoint products", that is the reason. You have to install Extensions for SharePoint products on all instances of SharePoint to tie the integration well.

Step 1: Install "Extensions for SharePoint Products" on all your SP 2010 Beta2 server.

Step 2: After installation, run the Extensions for SharePoint products configuration wizard. Once the configuration is complete, bring up Team Foundation Server Administration Console and click on Grant Access option

Step 3: In the Grant Access window, type in entries as shown and OK

Step 4: Log into your TFS server and bring up TFS Administration Console. I had skipped the SharePoint configuration during TFS configuration, so I have to go back and setup "SharePoint web applications". Expand "Application Tier" and select "SharePoint Web Applications". Click on "Add SharePoint Web Application" and register entries

Click Verify Path and you will be notified that the path is valid.

Step 5: Open up VS 2010 and connect to Team Foundation Server 2010. After connectiong, create a sample team project and when the "Team Site Settings" page displays, select "Create a new SharePoint site" option and select "Configure".

Accept the default values and proceed to the final screen and select "Finish".  I encountered the following error messages: TF218017 and TF250021

After some digging around with the TFS Install and Admin guide, discovered that I had to configure SharePoint site on "Team Project Collections"

Step 6: Log back into TFS 2010 Beta 2 server and load TFS Administration Console. In the admin console under Application Tier, select Team Project Collections and select the SharePoint tab on the lower pane. The first time you navigate to that screen, you will see the settings as below

Click on Edit Default Site Location and modify entries

You will be prompted with a confirmation to create a new site and upon accepting, you will see a confirmation screen as shown

You should now be able to go back and create the team project without any errors. You can view the team project portal and if you notice the url, it will point to the SP instance.

Now you have TFS 2010 Beta 2 integrated with SP 2010 Beta 2.

Hope this was helpful!