Merit Matters Blog

The Microsoft SharePoint Page Viewer Web Part can be used for displaying a Web page, file or folder on a Web Part Page.

Note: You can use the Page Viewer Web Part only in a browser that supports the HTML IFRAME element. Displaying a file or folder requires Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Here are the steps how to do this:

1. Go to the correct site.
   
2. Open Site Actions and select Edit Page.
3. Click Add a Web Part in the section you want the web part to be displayed in.
4. Choose the category Media and Content and select Page Viewer Web Part. Click Add.
   
5. The Page Viewer Web Part is added to the page. Click the Edit Web Part option in order to link the contents.
   
6. A) If you want to display a web page it's very straight forward. Just select Web Page and type in a URL under Link and the URL will be displayed.
   
   B) If you want to display a folder, type in a network path to that folder under Link and the folder content will be displayed.
   
   C) If you want to display a file content, type in a network path to that folder along with the file name under Link (e.g. \\shared\manuals\XYZ\User Manual XYZ 2013.pdf) and the file content will be displayed.
   

The file opens either in a separate browser window or inside the Web Part if the application that opens the file supports inline activation for that file in the browser window.

The commonly used method for uploading files in SharePoint’s Client Object Model API is the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SaveBinaryDirect method.

For example, calling:

public static void SaveBinaryDirect(

 ClientContext context,

 string serverRelativeUrl,

 Stream stream,

 bool overwriteIfExists
)

should be quite enough to get through. However, when it comes to Silverlight, the developer is limited to the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Silverlight namespace, and the SaveBinaryDirect method is not available there. The alternative is to use the more straightforward approach by instantiating the FileCreationInformation object and to use it for adding new files to the SharePoint folder, like so:

FileCreationInformation fci = new FileCreationInformation();

...

File file = list.RootFolder.Files.Add(fci);

However, one would yet again face an issue if the size of the file that needs to be uploaded is larger than 2MB. It is necessary to fully read the file prior to calling the Add method. The following method ensures just that:

private byte[] ReadFully(Stream input)

{

     byte[] buffer;
    
MemoryStream ms;

     int read;



     buffer = new byte[input.Length];

     using (ms = new MemoryStream())

     {
        
           while ((read = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)

          {

               ms.Write(buffer, 0, read);

          }

          return ms.ToArray();

     }

}

Now, regardless of their size, the method for uploading files looks like this:

public File UploadFile(string fileName, Stream fileStream, bool overwrite)

{
    
    FileCreationInformation fci;
   
StringBuilder sb;

    File file;



    fci = new FileCreationInformation();

    fci.Content = this.ReadFully(fileStream); //Calling the previous method

    fci.Overwrite = overwrite;

    fci.Url = fileName;



    file = list.RootFolder.Files.Add(fci);

    return file;

}

Happy coding!

Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Online Project Wizard adds the ability to create specific Sure Step projects in a partner or customer’s SharePoint environment all from within their own SharePoint environment or SharePoint Online.

In Sure Step, projects are a collection of documents, tools and templates that follow the Sure Step implementation methodology. When creating a new project, Sure Step Online Project Wizard will always retrieve the latest content ensuring that project documents are up to date. As the documents reside on SharePoint, it enables easy collaboration of the whole project team.

Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Online Project Wizard is a SharePoint hosted Silverlight application which harnesses the power of both SharePoint and cloud-based content storage. It can be hosted either on your local SharePoint 2010 environment or on SharePoint Online.

After a simple one time process for manually deploying the Project Wizard to the desired SharePoint environment described in the User Guide, Sure Step project can be created on the same site collection or any other accessible locally. (If the site collection resides on another SharePoint farm or web application additional configuration of the destination web application is required. This will be described in one of the later posts.)

Each time a Project Wizard is started it retrieves the configuration information and checks for compatibility. Only if a new version is required (which actually means that there were significant changes to the Sure Step content metadata model) a user will have to download the latest version and redeploy it to the destination SharePoint environment before continuing with the project creation.

Project Wizard retrieves the latest content metadata and generates the options offered in the wizard itself. Content as well as all the options offered in the Project Wizard are dynamically loaded from the Sure Step Online content repository. This enables seamless update of the Sure Step content, addition of new tools and templates, new solutions, project types and languages. This architecture ensures that each time a project is created using the wizard, it will contain the latest content available from Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Online without the need to regularly download and install client and content updates (which can be around 400MB for each language).

The Sure Step content is categorized into seven (industry related) solutions, six Dynamics product lines, five project types for implementation engagement type and numerous accelerators for diagnostic phase and optimization offering. An inventory of more than 750 tools and templates are available for use on each project with partial translation in nine languages. Projects are created for a specific Solution, Dynamics Product, Engagement type and a selected Project Type or accelerator. New project contains copies of all Sure Step documents applicable to selected criteria.

Sure Step Online Project Wizard can be deployed on the following environments:

• Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
• Microsoft SharePoint Online

To start using the Project Wizard in your SharePoint environment, download the Online Project Wizard and follow the instructions from the Sure Step Online User Guide.

More info and the links to resources can be found here.

The capabilities of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 work together to help your company quickly respond to changing business needs. Using SharePoint 2010, your people can share ideas and expertise, create custom solutions for specific needs, and find the right business information to make better decisions. For IT, SharePoint 2010 helps you cut training and maintenance costs, save time and effort, and focus on higher business priorities.

Whether you deploy the platform on-premises or as a hosted service, the capabilities of SharePoint 2010 work together to help you quickly respond to business needs using data-driven insights and solutions that are faster to develop and deploy.

Deliver the Best Productivity Experience

SharePoint 2010 helps your people be more productive. It offers a familiar Microsoft Office experience so that people can easily access the business information they need to get their jobs done.

• Faster adoption with a familiar user interface:SharePoint 2010 gives your people a familiar experience with the Microsoft Office Fluent™ user interface and a set of capabilities that works across the SharePoint and Office product families. With this familiar and intuitive user experience, your people can use their PCs, browsers, and mobile devices to become more productive and efficient.
• Continued productivity regardless of location: Mobile work isn’t just for the sales force anymore. Today, most companies expect their people to be “always on, always connected,” even when they’re away from the office. SharePoint 2010 offers a full set of capabilities that can help to increase productivity by giving people access to resources, regardless of the tools or devices they have available.
• Rapid results with ready-to-use capabilities: SharePoint 2010 helps your people work together better with out-of-the-box personal SharePoint sites—My Sites—and pre-defined site templates (such as team sites and enterprise wikis). Everyone can easily customize their sites with SharePoint Web Parts and the new theming engine, making everyday tasks easier to accomplish.

Cut Costs with a Unified Infrastructure

SharePoint 2010 helps you reduce costs by consolidating intranet, extranet, and Internet sites on a single platform, on-premises or in the cloud.

• Reduced costs through platform consolidation: SharePoint 2010 offers a rich set of integrated capabilities and a single, scalable platform, helping your company and customers reduce costs in several ways. As people begin to work together better and faster, IT can focus on higher business priorities. Plus, by consolidating solutions on SharePoint, you can be sure that everyone is using the same resources and the right information to make better business decisions.
• More choice with on-premises and hosted options: Your collaboration platform must be able to scale up and out quickly as your company changes and grows. With SharePoint 2010, you can deploy your environment on-premises or in the cloud, letting you make the decision based on business needs, not technology constraints.
• Proactive platform management: SharePoint 2010 can help IT save time, effort, and cost. A full set of rich administrative tools makes it easier and faster to manage your platform, freeing you to focus on other critical business needs.

Rapidly Respond to Business Needs

SharePoint 2010 gives you the best of both worlds: out-of-the-box applications and a platform for customized solutions. You can use the features of SharePoint 2010 just as they are or quickly create secure and easy-to-use solutions for specific business needs.

• More value with existing tools and skills: Connections between SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Visual Studio® 2010 mean that your development team can create and deploy custom solutions on the fly. Using familiar tools and interfaces, developers can apply their current programming skills to a specific business need and help to solve it, quickly and effectively.
• Two-way interaction with line-of-business data: SharePoint 2010 allows everyone, regardless of their technical expertise, to interact with information from databases, reports, and business applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. What’s more, people can surface the data in their SharePoint sites, analyze it, and make updates to be reflected in the external source itself.
• No-code custom solutions for specific business needs: With SharePoint 2010, you can quickly create no-code solutions and deploy them in an easy and secure way. From simple sites to complex applications, there’s a code-free solution for almost every business need.

Learn more about Microsoft SharePoint 2010!