Richard Willis – SharePoint Learning Kit Coordinator, SalamanderSoft Owner

Having removed the "Use a Meeting Workspace" option from individual calendars in my previous post, I wondered if there was a way to remove them from all existing and new calendars within a site collection.

I found a way to do it by modifying the calendar schema in the hive folder. However, although this works, it technically leaves SharePoint in an unsupported state, so I didn’t want to go down that route.

Then I had a thought that all the items in a calendar list are of the Event content type, so if you can modify that, to make the Workspace option hidden, then it would be removed from all calendars.

Unfortunately when you look at the Event Content Type in the Site Content Types gallery, the Workspace column is greyed out so you can’t edit it.

However, it proved to be remarkably easy to script using PowerShell:

# Script to remove Use a Meeting Workspace from all calendars
$siteUrl = "http://myserver/sites/mysite"
[system.reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.Sharepoint") > $null
$site = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($siteUrl)

$contentTypeId = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPBuiltInContentTypeId]::Event
$eventContentType = $site.RootWeb.ContentTypes[$contentTypeId]

$fieldId = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPBuiltInFieldId]::WorkspaceLink
$field = $eventContentType.FieldLinks[$fieldId]

$field.Hidden = $true
$eventContentType.Update($true);

# Dispose the site object
if ($site) {$site.Dispose()}

The only slightly tricky bit was needing to use the FieldLinks property instead of Fields.

The $eventContentType.Update($true); line ensures that it updates all existing calendars in the site collection, otherwise it will just be for new ones.

I’ve actually increased the script by 2 lines to fit it in my blog by adding in the $fieldId and $contentTypeId. Originally it was even more compact.

Again, this takes effect immediately throughout the entire site collection with no need for an iisreset or an application pool recycle.

I’ve just deployed a custom meeting site to a customer to handle multiple meetings within one site. Hence the option to “Use a Meeting Workspace” when creating a new or updating a calendar item is unnecessary, so they asked me to remove it to prevent anyone using it by mistake.

When creating a calendar item (or updating) this is the dialog you get, with the Use a Meeting Workspace highlighted.

From SharePoint Blues I discovered that if you set the calendar list field to hidden then this option would no longer display. Taking this concept, I created a PowerShell script to set this to hidden on a one off basis.

The script is:

# Script to remove Use a Meeting Workspace from a specific calendar

function RemoveWorkspaceLink ([String]$siteUrl, [String]$calendarName)
{
[system.reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“Microsoft.Sharepoint”) > $null
$site = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($siteUrl)
if ($site -eq $null)
{
return
}

$web = $site.OpenWeb()
$list = $web.Lists[$calendarName]
if ($list -eq $null)
{
“Invalid list name ” + $calendarName
}
else
{
$field = $list.Fields[[Microsoft.SharePoint.SPBuiltInFieldId]::WorkspaceLink]
$field.Hidden = $true
$field.Update()
“Updated ” + $calendarName + ” on ” + $siteUrl
}

# Dispose of the SharePoint objects
if ($web) {$web.Dispose()}
if ($site) {$site.Dispose()}
}

RemoveWorkspaceLink “http://myserver/sites/site1″ “Calendar1″
RemoveWorkspaceLink “http://myserver/sites/site2″ “Calendar2″

I’ve written this as a function so that you can update multiple calendars at the time. If you saved this as a .ps1 file and then run it, the 2 calendars referenced at the bottom would be updated. Alternatively you could . source the file and use the function interactively, or just hard code the $siteUrl and $calendarName variables each time you run it.

The option is removed immediately you have run the script with no iisreset or application pool recycle required.

So with the script is run this is what you see with the Meeting Workspace option removed:

This works well for hiding it on individual calendar lists, but doesn’t affect any other existing calendars or ones created afterwards.

I’ve since found a way to update all calendars in a site collection.

I was recently creating some departmental sites for a school in SharePoint 2010 and wanted some metadata to attach to documents. I couldn’t find any ready made ones, so had to create my own.

I found a Mathematics taxonomy in the Journal of Online Mathematics and its Applications which is based on the Math NSDL Taxonomy Committee Report, April 2, 2002, with draft changes proposed for Section 9 by CAUSE, May 16, 2004. Further changes to Section 9 were approved by the Math Gateway Partners Group, April 29, 2005.

It looks fairly comprehensive to me, but obviously wasn’t in a suitable format for importing into SharePoint 2010, and was certainly too large to type in. So using vim and some macros I fairly quickly converted it into the correct csv input format for SharePoint 2010. It’s quite a detailed taxonomy and at a school level you will probably want to delete some of the terms, but it’s a good start.

Then I added a Managed Metadata column to the document libraries for the department, linked to the Mathematics term set. I made this required and allowing multiple selections, but defaulted it to the top level. This means that they can add more explicit tagging to help with searching and findability, but it doesn’t prevent the users adding documents if they don’t have the skills or inclination to tag properly.

You can download my finished csv file from here. I also created one for the level of content, covering Key Stages, years and qualifications and added another optional column for this. Finally I created another one for ICT, but this one is really basic as I couldn’t find a decent taxonomy for it and wasn’t really sure what’s covered at a school level.

Update: With thank to @stevegillott I now have a vastly better ICT set of metadata which I’ve updated here as well. It’s based on the UK National Curriculum.

Learning Possibilities+ are holding a free SharePoint event for schools on the afternoon of 8 March 2011 in Northampton.

The speakers are:

Stephen Heppell on the Future of Online Learning

Stephen works with governments and national agencies throughout the world on the strategic development of ICT. He will be talking about the future of online learning within the current economic climate.

Tom Rees on "How ICT and VLE’s can transform learning"

Tom is head teacher at Little Harrowden Community Primary School, and driving force in the Northants BLT ‘Better Learning using Technology’ Network.

Tony Sheppard on "Parental Engagement – moving beyond government targets"

Tony is the educationalist technologist, harnessing technologies manager at Northamptonshire County Council

There’s also demonstrations and technical queries of the LP+ platform and Adopt Consultancy.

For more details and to book see https://learningpossibilities.lpplus.net/Pages/NorthantsEvent.aspx.

Recently I was using testing the Managed Metadata Service to share Content Types via Content Type Hub Syndication. I created my content types in the hub and had the Managed Metadata Service all set up and my web application was subscribed to it.

So I created a new blank site collection to test the synchronisation of my content types, but no matter what I tried, they just didn’t show up. I checked all the setting on the Managed Metadata Service, ensured that the content types were published and manually ran the Content Type timer jobs, but all to no avail.

Finally, after some searching on the internet I tracked down the problem. To subscribe to the content type hub the feature TaxonomyFieldAdded needs to be enabled. This is a hidden feature so can only be enabled programmatically or via PowerShell for which the command is

Enable-SPFeature–Url "http://mysiteurl" -Identity "73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C"

where the guid 73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C is the id of the feature.

Once this feature is enabled you will get the Content type publishing link in Site Settings

and the published content types immediately appeared in the site collection’s Site content types.

This feature also enables the use of Managed Metadata columns in lists. Without the feature enabled you get this error when trying to use a Managed Metadata column:

which renders the column useless. As soon as the feature is enabled then you can use it as normal.

Note, that this problem only occurs in site collections which have been created as a blank site. It does not affect blank sites created within other site collections created from another template. The reason for this is that there is another feature called TaxonomyFeatureStapler which staples the feature to most other sites, with the notable exception of the blank site. I can only assume that it’s this way because the blank site template is supposed to be a base site and have minimal functionality. If you regularly create blank site collections and need to use Managed Metadata on them you should be able to create your own feature stapler to add the TaxonomyFieldAdded feature to the blank site template.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be speaking on the SharePoint Learning Kit at the European Best Practises Conference 2011. I’ll be covering how to use SLK and the next version 1.6 features which I’ll be releasing round about the same time.

This is the third conference of it’s kind organised by Combined Knowledge (Best Practises 2009 and SharePoint Evolutions in 2010) and will be a fantastic event if the last 2 are anything to go by. It’s got some of the best SharePoint speakers in the world, including a host of MVPs, speaking on a wide range of topics. With 6 tracks there’s enough material to interest anybody for 3 days and afterwards you get a set of DVDs with every session on.

Today I released SLK 1.5 which is available from http://slk.codeplex.com/releases/view/60708.

It has a couple of bug fixes over the release candidate namely:

1.    Fixed Download Settings page in Central Administration.

2.    You couldn’t assign to a site with inherited permissions unless all learners on that site had been assigned to before

I’ve also made changes to the SLK admin feature to try to ensure that it appears in Central Administration. As a last resort it is not a hidden feature so you can enable it under Farm Features in central admin.

Over the next few months Tech.Days online will be bringing you IT insights and debate most Tuesdays afternoons from 1400 – 1500 GMT. These will be real-time webinars will be hosted by Microsoft’s leading experts on the private cloud, public cloud and the desktop and are completely free.

The full list is:

Public Cloud

Desktop

Private Cloud

I’ve created an iCalendar file containing all the events which you can import into your favourite Calendar program. Download from here.

It’s that time of year again when Olympia opens its doors to the world of IT in Education and BETT begins. The themes of BETT this year are Managing Change and Learning for Less which are obviously very topical, however I expect that fewer than normal will be going this year due to budgetary constraints. Even though tickets are free (and still available) the transport and cover costs can be large, although you justify the costs on visiting the Microsoft stand and finding about their money saving tips and licensing changes (more later).

I will again be there all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and would love to meet up with as many of you as possible. We can either arrange a meeting before hand, or just get in touch on the day by mobile, email or Twitter (@rpwillis) – although it can be hard to hear your phone amongst all the hubbub.

Highlights include

but most of all is the networking opportunity with people you normally only email or talk to on the phone.

I hope to see you there.

I have just created another free utility for Sims – a utility to export details of all reports in Sims into a csv file. That’s reports as in the reporting engine, not student reports. This will allow you to easily see what reports are in Sims, who created them and hence whether you want to remove any. Inspired by this thread on EduGeek.

To use:

1. The utility must be run on a machine where Sims.net workstation or server is installed.
2. First run GenerateConfigFile.bat. You must also run this everytime Sims.Net is updated. If Sims.Net is not installed in c:\program files\Sims\Sims .Net, you will need to modify the bat file.
3. Copy a connect.ini into the folder.
4. Run SimsReportList from the command line with 3 arguments, Sims username, Sims password and output folder.
5. SimsReportList will then save the report details into the file.

You can run SimsReportList.exe /? for a brief help summary.

Download Here.