Category Archives: Custom Development

Azure, Custom Development, Custom Library, Design, TFS

New Azure To TFS Deploy Tool Available

October 6, 2014 Sharepoint Samurai Leave a comment

Deploy Windows Azure project directly from TFS 2010 Build Server

Build Definition Template
DeployToAzure allows automating deployment of Windows Azure project and making it a part of TFS 2010 build process without using PowerShell and Azure Management CmdLets.

Solution includes:

A set of custom workflow actions wrapping Azure Management API operations such as GetDeployment, GetOperationStatus, NewDeployment, RemoveDeployment and SetDeploymentStatus;
Helper actions such as FindPackageAndConfigurationFiles, LoadCertificate and WaitForOperationToComplete;
Designer activity DeployToAzure implementing deployment logic ;
Reusable build definition template.

How it works :

Create build definition

Open New Build Definition dialog. Select Process tab. Click New button in Build process template section. Choose Select an existing XAML file option and specify path to DefaultTemplateWithDeploymentToAzure.xaml in your source control.

processtemplate

Deployment to Azure section will appear in Build process parameters. Click Refresh button if you don’t see it.

d2asection

Now define build properties. First ,open 1. Required / Items to build dialog and select your solution and specify configuration to build.

Open Deployment to Azure section and provide following parameters:

API Certificate store location – store location of your management certificate. Select LocalMachine if certificate was created by command above.
API Certificate Thumbprint – thumbprint of management certificate.
API Certificate store – store where management certificate is located. Select Root if certificate was created by command above.
Cloud Project – cloud project to be packaged and deployed. It will be built with the same configuration as the one specified for solution building.
Deployment label – label of deployment. Label can contain same set of macros as Build Label.
Hosted Service Name – DNS Prefix of Hosted service. You can find it on Windows Azure portal.
Service configuration – service configuration to be used for deployment, for example Cloud. Keep this field empty to use default configuration.
Slot – select Staging or Production.
Storage Service Name – DNS Prefix of storage service which will be used to upload deployment package.
Subscription Id – Azure subscription ID.
Wait for roles to start – set to true if build should wait for all instances to start.
Initialization Timeout – if above is true, specify timeout for build to wait before generate timeout exception.

Contact me at floyd_tomas@yahoo.com for this and other Azure, SharePoint, Office365, TFS and Agile Tools

.Net 4, Adapter, B2B, Custom Development, Custom Library, How To, Microsoft Visual Studio, Office 365, Office365, Patterns & Practices, SAP, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint Online; Office 365;

How To : SAP Integration with .Net 4.0 (SAP Connection Manager) & SharePoint

October 3, 2014 Sharepoint Samurai Leave a comment

This is a simple, C# class library project to connect .NET applications with SAP.

This component internally implements SAP .NET Connector 3.0. The SAP .NET Connector is a development environment that enables communication between the Microsoft .NET platform and SAP systems.

This connector supports RFCs and Web services, and allows you to write different applications such as Web form, Windows form, or console applications in the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

With the SAP .NET Connector, you can use all common programming languages, such as Visual Basic. NET, C#, or Managed C++.

Features
Using the SAP .NET Connector you can:

Write .NET Windows and Web form applications that have access to SAP business objects (BAPIs).

Develop client applications for the SAP Server.

Write RFC server applications that run in a .NET environment and can be installed starting from the SAP system.

Following are the steps to configure this utility on your project

Download and extract the attached file and place it on your machine. This package contains 3 libraries:

SAPConnectionManager.dll
sapnco.dll
sapnco_utils.dll

Now go to your project and add the reference of all these four libraries. Sapnco.dll and sapnco_utils.dll are inbuilt libraries used by SAP .NET Connector. SAPConnectionManager.dll is the main component which provides the connection between .NET and SAP.

Once the above steps are complete, you need to make certain entries related to SAP server on your configuration file. Here are the sample entries that you have to maintain on your own project. You need to change only the values which are marked in Bold. Rest remains unchanged.

<appSettings>
<add key=”ServerHost” value=”127.0.0.1″/>
<add key=”SystemNumber” value=”00″/>
<add key=”User” value=”sample”/>
<add key=”Password” value=”pass”/>
<add key=”Client” value=”50″/>
<add key=”Language” value=”EN”/>
<add key=”PoolSize” value=”5″/>
<add key=”PeakConnectionsLimit” value=”10″/>
<add key=”IdleTimeout” value=”600″/>
</appSettings>

To test this component, create one windows application. Add the reference of sapnco.dll, sapnco_utils.dll, andSAPConnectionManager.dll on your project.

Paste the below code on your Form lode event

SAPSystemConnect sapCfg = new SAPSystemConnect();
RfcDestinationManager.RegisterDestinationConfiguration(sapCfg);
RfcDestination rfcDest = null;
rfcDest = RfcDestinationManager.GetDestination(“Dev”);

That’s it. Now you are successfully connected with your SAP Server. Next you need to call SAP business objects (BAPIs) and extract the data and stored it in DataSet or list.

Demo Code available on request!!

.Net 4.5, Apps, Best Practices and Patterns, C#, Custom Development, Design Pattern, Microsoft Best Patterns and Practices, Microsoft SharePoint, Office365, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint App, Visual Studio 2013, Visual Studio Online

Free Code to Create Cross-site Publishing Apps for SharePoint Online

September 4, 2014 Sharepoint Samurai Leave a comment

Cross-site publishing is one of the powerful new capabilities in SharePoint 2013. It enables the separation of data entry from display and breaks down the container barriers that have traditionally existed in SharePoint (ex: rolling up information across site collections).

IC648720[1]

Cross-site publishing is delivered through search and a number of new features, including list/library catalogs, catalog connections, and the content search web part. Unfortunately, SharePoint Online/Office 365 doesn’t currently support these features. Until they are added to the service (possibly in a quarterly update), customers will be looking for alternatives to close the gap. In this post, I will outline several alternatives for delivering cross-site and search-driven content in SharePoint Online and how to template these views for reuse

I’m a huge proponent of SharePoint Online. After visiting several Microsoft data centers, I feel confident that Microsoft is better positioned to run SharePoint infrastructure than almost any organization in the world. SharePoint Online has very close feature parity to SharePoint on-premise, with the primary gaps existing in cross-site publishing and advanced business intelligence. Although these capabilities have acceptable alternatives in the cloud (as will be outlined in this post), organizations looking to maximize the cloud might consider SharePoint running in IaaS for immediate access to these features.

Apps for SharePoint

The new SharePoint app model is fully supported in SharePoint Online and can be used to deliver customizations to SharePoint using any web technology. New SharePoint APIs can be used with the app model to deliver an experience similar to cross-site publishing. In fact, the content search web part could be re-written for delivery through the app model as an “App Part” for SharePoint Online.
Although the app model provides great flexibility and reuse, it does come with some drawbacks. Because an app part is delivered through a glorified IFRAME, it would be challenging to navigate to a new page from within the app part. A link within the app would only navigate within the IFRAME (not the parent of the IFRAME). Secondly, there isn’t a great mechanism for templating a site to automatically leverage an app part on its page(s). Apps do not work with site templates, so a site that contains an app cannot be saved as a template. Apps can be “stapled” to sites, but the app installed event (which would be needed to add the app part to a page) only fires when the app is installed into the app catalog.

REST APIs and Script Editor

The script editor web part is a powerful new tool that can help deliver flexible customization into SharePoint Online. The script editor web part allows a block of client-side script to be added to any wiki or web part page in a site. Combined with the new SharePoint REST APIs, the script editor web part can deliver mash-ups very similar to cross-site publishing and the content search web part. Unlike apps for SharePoint, the script editor isn’t constrained by IFRAME containers, app permissions, or templating limitations. In fact, a well-configured script editor web part could be exported and re-imported into the web part gallery for reuse.

Cross-site publishing leverages “catalogs” for precise querying of specific content. Any List/Library can be designated as a catalog. By making this designation, SharePoint will automatically create managed properties for columns of the List/Library and ultimately generate a search result source in sites that consume the catalog. Although SharePoint Online doesn’t support catalogs, it support the building blocks such as managed properties and result sources. These can be manually configured to provide the same precise querying in SharePoint Online and exploited in the script editor web part for display.

Calling Search REST APIs

<div id=”divContentContainer”></div>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
    $(document).ready(function ($) {
        var basePath = “https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/somesite/_api/”;
        $.ajax({
            url: basePath + “search/query?Querytext=’ContentType:News'”,
            type: “GET”,
            headers: { “Accept”: “application/json;odata=verbose” },
            success: function (data) {
                //script to build UI HERE
            },
            error: function (data) {
                //output error HERE
            }
        });
    });
</script>

An easier approach might be to directly reference a list/library in the REST call of our client-side script. This wouldn’t require manual search configuration and would provide real-time publishing (no waiting for new items to get indexed). You could think of this approach similar to a content by query web part across site collections (possibly even farms) and the REST API makes it all possible!

List REST APIs

<div id=”divContentContainer”></div>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
    $(document).ready(function ($) {
        var basePath = “https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/somesite/_api/”;
        $.ajax({
            url: basePath + “web/lists/GetByTitle(‘News’)/items/?$select=Title&$filter=Feature eq 0”,
            type: “GET”,
            headers: { “Accept”: “application/json;odata=verbose” },
            success: function (data) {
                //script to build UI HERE
            },
            error: function (data) {
                //output error HERE
            }
        });
    });
</script>

The content search web part uses display templates to render search results in different arrangements (ex: list with images, image carousel, etc). There are two types of display templates the content search web part leverages…the control template, which renders the container around the items, and the item template, which renders each individual item in the search results. This is very similar to the way a Repeater control works in ASP.NET. Display templates are authored using HTML, but are converted to client-side script automatically by SharePoint for rendering. I mention this because our approach is very similar…we will leverage a container and then loop through and render items in script. In fact, all the examples in this post were converted from display templates in a public site I’m working on.

Item display template for content search web part

<!–#_
var encodedId = $htmlEncode(ctx.ClientControl.get_nextUniqueId() + “_ImageTitle_”);
var rem = index % 3;
var even = true;
if (rem == 1)
even = false;

var pictureURL = $getItemValue(ctx, “Picture URL”);
var pictureId = encodedId + “picture”;
var pictureMarkup = Srch.ContentBySearch.getPictureMarkup(pictureURL, 140, 90, ctx.CurrentItem, “mtcImg140”, line1, pictureId);
var pictureLinkId = encodedId + “pictureLink”;
var pictureContainerId = encodedId + “pictureContainer”;
var dataContainerId = encodedId + “dataContainer”;
var dataContainerOverlayId = encodedId + “dataContainerOverlay”;
var line1LinkId = encodedId + “line1Link”;
var line1Id = encodedId + “line1”;
_#–>
<div style=”width: 320px; float: left; display: table; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px;”>
   <a href=”_#= linkURL =#_”>
      <div style=”float: left; width: 140px; padding-right: 10px;”>
         <img src=”_#= pictureURL =#_” class=”mtcImg140″ style=”width: 140px;” />
      </div>
      <div style=”float: left; width: 170px”>
         <div class=”mtcProfileHeader mtcProfileHeaderP”>_#= line1 =#_</div>
      </div>
   </a>
</div>

Script equivalent

<div id=”divUnfeaturedNews”></div>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
    $(document).ready(function ($) {
        var basePath = “https://richdizzcom.sharepoint.com/sites/dallasmtcauth/_api/”;
        $.ajax({
            url: basePath + “web/lists/GetByTitle(‘News’)/items/?$select=Title&$filter=Feature eq 0”,
            type: “GET”,
            headers: { “Accept”: “application/json;odata=verbose” },
            success: function (data) {
                //get the details for each item
                var listData = data.d.results;
                var itemCount = listData.length;
                var processedCount = 0;
                var ul = $(“<ul style=’list-style-type: none; padding-left: 0px;’ class=’cbs-List’>”);
                for (i = 0; i < listData.length; i++) {
                    $.ajax({
                        url: listData[i].__metadata[“uri”] + “/FieldValuesAsHtml”,
                        type: “GET”,
                        headers: { “Accept”: “application/json;odata=verbose” },
                        success: function (data) {
                            processedCount++;
                            var htmlStr = “<li style=’display: inline;’><div style=’width: 320px; float: left; display: table; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px;’>”;
                            htmlStr += “<a href=’#’>”;
                            htmlStr += “<div style=’float: left; width: 140px; padding-right: 10px;’>”;
                            htmlStr += setImageWidth(data.d.PublishingRollupImage, ‘140’);
                            htmlStr += “</div>”;
                            htmlStr += “<div style=’float: left; width: 170px’>”;
                            htmlStr += “<div class=’mtcProfileHeader mtcProfileHeaderP’>” + data.d.Title + “</div>”;
                            htmlStr += “</div></a></div></li>”;
                            ul.append($(htmlStr))
                            if (processedCount == itemCount) {
                                $(“#divUnfeaturedNews”).append(ul);
                            }
                        },
                        error: function (data) {
                            alert(data.statusText);
                        }
                    });
                }
            },
            error: function (data) {
                alert(data.statusText);
            }
        });
    });

    function setImageWidth(imgString, width) {
        var img = $(imgString);
        img.css(‘width’, width);
        return img[0].outerHTML;
    }
</script>

Even one of the more complex carousel views from my site took less than 30min to convert to the script editor approach.

Advanced carousel script

<div id=”divFeaturedNews”>
    <div class=”mtc-Slideshow” id=”divSlideShow” style=”width: 610px;”>
        <div style=”width: 100%; float: left;”>
            <div id=”divSlideShowSection”>
                <div style=”width: 100%;”>
                    <div class=”mtc-SlideshowItems” id=”divSlideShowSectionContainer” style=”width: 610px; height: 275px; float: left; border-style: none; overflow: hidden; position: relative;”>
                        <div id=”divFeaturedNewsItemContainer”>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
    $(document).ready(function ($) {
        var basePath = “https://richdizzcom.sharepoint.com/sites/dallasmtcauth/_api/”;
        $.ajax({
            url: basePath + “web/lists/GetByTitle(‘News’)/items/?$select=Title&$filter=Feature eq 1&$top=4”,
            type: “GET”,
            headers: { “Accept”: “application/json;odata=verbose” },
            success: function (data) {
                var listData = data.d.results;
                for (i = 0; i < listData.length; i++) {
                    getItemDetails(listData, i, listData.length);
                }
            },
            error: function (data) {
                alert(data.statusText);
            }
        });
    });
    var processCount = 0;
    function getItemDetails(listData, i, count) {
        $.ajax({
            url: listData[i].__metadata[“uri”] + “/FieldValuesAsHtml”,
            type: “GET”,
            headers: { “Accept”: “application/json;odata=verbose” },
            success: function (data) {
                processCount++;
                var itemHtml = “<div class=’mtcItems’ id=’divPic_” + i + “‘ style=’width: 610px; height: 275px; float: left; position: absolute; border-bottom: 1px dotted #ababab; z-index: 1; left: 0px;’>”
                itemHtml += “<div id=’container_” + i + “‘ style=’width: 610px; height: 275px; float: left;’>”;
                itemHtml += “<a href=’#’ title='” + data.d.Caption_x005f_x0020_x005f_Title + “‘ style=’width: 610px; height: 275px;’>”;
                itemHtml += data.d.Feature_x005f_x0020_x005f_Image;
                itemHtml += “</a></div></div>”;
                itemHtml += “<div class=’titleContainerClass’ id=’divTitle_” + i + “‘ data-originalidx='” + i + “‘ data-currentidx='” + i + “‘ style=’height: 25px; z-index: 2; position: absolute; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8); cursor: pointer; padding-right: 10px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 4px; color: #000; font-size: 18px;’ onclick=’changeSlide(this);’>”;
                itemHtml += data.d.Caption_x005f_x0020_x005f_Title;
                itemHtml += “<span id=’currentSpan_” + i + “‘ style=’display: none; font-size: 16px;’>” + data.d.Caption_x005f_x0020_x005f_Body + “</span></div>”;
                $(‘#divFeaturedNewsItemContainer’).append(itemHtml);

                if (processCount == count) {
                    allItemsLoaded();
                }
            },
            error: function (data) {
                alert(data.statusText);
            }
        });
    }
    window.mtc_init = function (controlDiv) {
        var slideItems = controlDiv.children;
        for (var i = 0; i < slideItems.length; i++) {
            if (i > 0) {
                slideItems[i].style.left = ‘610px’;
            }
        };
    };

    function allItemsLoaded() {
        var slideshows = document.querySelectorAll(“.mtc-SlideshowItems”);
        for (var i = 0; i < slideshows.length; i++) {
            mtc_init(slideshows[i].children[0]);
        }

        var div = $(‘#divTitle_0’);
        cssTitle(div, true);
        var top = 160;
        for (i = 1; i < 4; i++) {
            var divx = $(‘#divTitle_’ + i);
            cssTitle(divx, false);
            divx.css(‘top’, top);
            top += 35;
        }
    }

    window.changeSlide = function (item) {
        //get all title containers
        var listItems = document.querySelectorAll(‘.titleContainerClass’);
        var currentIndexVals = { 0: null, 1: null, 2: null, 3: null };
        var newIndexVals = { 0: null, 1: null, 2: null, 3: null };

        for (var i = 0; i < listItems.length; i++) {
            //current Index
            currentIndexVals[i] = parseInt(listItems[i].getAttribute(‘data-currentidx’));
        }

        var selectedIndex = 0; //selected Index will always be 0
        var leftOffset = ”;
        var originalSelectedIndex = ”;

var nextSelected = ”;
var originalNextIndex = ”;

        if (item == null) {
            var item0 = document.querySelector(‘[data-currentidx=”‘ + currentIndexVals[0] + ‘”]’);
            originalSelectedIndex = parseInt(item0.getAttribute(‘data-originalidx’));
            originalNextIndex = originalSelectedIndex + 1;
            nextSelected = currentIndexVals[0] + 1;
        }
        else {
            nextSelected = item.getAttribute(‘data-currentidx’);
            originalNextIndex = item.getAttribute(‘data-originalidx’);
        }

if (nextSelected == 0) { return; }

        for (i = 0; i < listItems.length; i++) {
            if (currentIndexVals[i] == selectedIndex) {
                //this is the selected item, so move to bottom and animate
                var div = $(‘[data-currentidx=”0″]’);
                cssTitle(div, false);
                div.css(‘left’, ‘-400px’);
                div.css(‘top’, ‘230px’);

                newIndexVals[i] = 3;
                var item0 = document.querySelector(‘[data-currentidx=”0″]’);
                originalSelectedIndex = item0.getAttribute(‘data-originalidx’);

                //annimate
                div.delay(500).animate(
                    { left: ‘0px’ }, 500, function () {
                    });
            }
            else if (currentIndexVals[i] == nextSelected) {
                //this is the NEW selected item, so resize and slide in as selected
                var div = $(‘[data-currentidx=”‘ + nextSelected + ‘”]’);
                cssTitle(div, true);
                div.css(‘left’, ‘-610px’);

newIndexVals[i] = 0;

                //annimate
                div.delay(500).animate(
                    { left: ‘0px’ }, 500, function () {
                    });
            }
            else {
                //move up in queue
                var curIdx = currentIndexVals[i];
                var div = $(‘[data-currentidx=”‘ + curIdx + ‘”]’);

var topStr = div.css(‘top’);
var topInt = parseInt(topStr.substring(0, topStr.length – 1));

                if (curIdx != 1 && nextSelected == 1 || curIdx > nextSelected) {
                    topInt = topInt – 35;
                    if (curIdx – 1 == 2) { newIndexVals[i] = 2 };
                    if (curIdx – 1 == 1) { newIndexVals[i] = 1 };
                }

                //move up
                div.animate(
                    { top: topInt }, 500, function () {
                    });
            }
        };

if (originalNextIndex < 0)
originalNextIndex = itemCount – 1;

        //adjust pictures
        $(‘#divPic_’ + originalNextIndex).css(‘left’, ‘610px’);
        leftOffset = ‘-610px’;

        $(‘#divPic_’ + originalSelectedIndex).animate(
            { left: leftOffset }, 500, function () {
            });

        $(‘#divPic_’ + originalNextIndex).animate(
            { left: ‘0px’ }, 500, function () {
            });

End-result of script editors in SharePoint Online

Separate authoring site collection

Final Thoughts

C#, Custom Development, Custom Library, Design Pattern, Patterns and Practices, SharePoint Integration, SharePoint Server, Visual Studio 2012, Visual Studio 2013

How to connect a SharePoint 2013 Document Library to Outlook 2013

September 1, 2014 Sharepoint Samurai Leave a comment

One of the key methods of gaining User Adoption of SharePoint is ensuring and pushing the integration it has with Microsoft Office to information workers. After all, information workers generally use Outlook as their ‘mother-ship’. Getting those users to switch immediately to SharePoint or, asking them to visit a document library in a SharePoint site which they will need to access could take time, especially since it means opening a browser, navigating to the site, covering their beloved Outlook client in the process.

The following describes how to connect a typical SharePoint 2013 document library to Outlook 2013 client.

Access your SharePoint site; go into the relevant Documents library. In the below example, I clicked on the default Team Site Documents repository link in the Quick Launch bar, which has around 140 documents.

Ok, that’s the Document library displayed, now to get to the Library Tab on the Ribbon bar; the option we are looking for is within the Library options available there.

When the Library ribbon is displayed, click the Connect To Outlook button in the Connect & Export section. Note. If Connect to Outlook is greyed out ensure that Outlook 2013 is fully operational. I’ve come across examples where Outlook is installed, but no email account has been enabled in Outlook – if that’s the case this button will be greyed out.

Once the Connect To Outlook button is clicked, you may receive a warning message informing you that you allow SharePoint to connect with Outlook – Click ALLOW.

Outlook 2013 will be displayed. A dialog will also then be displayed that asks you to confirm that you wish to connect the Document Library to Outlook. The below dialog shows the Site Name and Document Library title, along with the URL of the document library being connected. Below, and to the right is a button that shows more information about the connection (ADVANCED button). The following screenshot shows the information displayed if the Advanced Button is clicked. There is not much you can do on that screen, for now, click YES to confirm the connection.

Here’s an example of the Advanced dialog associated. The most interesting aspect is the Permissions line. For Document Library connection to Outlook, this will be set as READ. This is by design, and for good reason. Things like classified metadata are not exposed to be writeable from Outlook including other document library settings like CheckIn/Out etc. However, this does not prevent you from modifying a file in the resultant list. If the document needs to be updated, simply double-click on the document which will open it in the local application, click the edit offline option, make your changes, click save, click close, and then a prompt should appear to allow you to update to the server.

Once completed, the documents will be listed in Outlook. The following screenshot shows the result of a Shared Document Library from a SharePoint 2013 site connected to Outlook 2013. Note the following features which in my view are awesome for User Adoption particularly from those whose centre of the universe happens to be the Outlook client; without going into jargon try to explain the following features:

That users are able to switch from connected library to connected library using the navigation options, each connected library shows the number of unread items (un-previewed or un-opened documents).
That each document (if the previewer is available) when clicked on will display a preview of the document; meaning that you can read a Word Document, for example, without having to open it in the client application.
That information concerning the state of the document is displayed, showing the last modifier, whether the document is checked out, when it was last modified and the document size.

Note. There is a problem I have noticed in the preview section when highlighting any file whilst working with SharePoint 2013, Office 2013 on a sandbox; the message:

‘This file cannot be previewed because of an error with the following previewer: Microsoft xxxxx previewer – To open this file in its own program, double-click it;’.

There is an article that seems to describe the issue (but does not directly mention when it’s likely to occur); and is known to Microsoft. A description of the alternatives whilst a fix is being provided here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983097. I will further investigate this and update this article.

BizTalk, C#, Custom Development, SAP, Software Engineering, Tools, Workflow

How To : Use Azure BizTalk Services to Integrate with an On-Premises SAP Server

July 28, 2014 Sharepoint Samurai Leave a comment

Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services provides a rich set of integration capabilities enabling organizations to create hybrid solutions such that their customer or partner facing applications are hosted on Azure, while the data related to customers or partners is stored on-premises using LOB applications.

To demonstrate how to integrate applications with an on-premises LOB application using BizTalk Services, let us consider a scenario involving two business partners, Fabrikam and Contoso.

Business Scenario

Contoso sends a purchase order (PO) message to Fabrikam in an X12 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) format using the PO (X12 850) schema. Fabrikam (that uses an SAP Server to manage partner data), accepts PO from its partners using the ORDERS05 IDOCS.

To enable Contoso to send a PO directly to Fabrikam’s on-premises SAP Server, Fabrikam decides to use Azure’s integration offering, BizTalk Services, to set up a hybrid integration scenario where the integration layer is hosted on and the SAP Server is within the organization’s firewall. Fabrikam uses BizTalk Services in the following ways to enable this hybrid integration scenario:

Fabrikam uses Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services SDK to create a BizTalk Service project. The project includes a XML One-Way Bridge to send messages to a relay endpoint, which in turns sends the message to the on-premise SAP system.

Fabrikam uses the BizTalk Adapter Service component available with BizTalk Services to expose the Send operation on ORDERS05 IDOC as an operation using Service Bus relay endpoint. The XML One-Way Bridge sends messages to this relay endpoint. Fabrikam also creates the schema for Send operation using BizTalk Adapter Service and includes the schema as part of the BizTalk Service project.

Note
A Send operation on an IDOC is an operation that is exposed by the BizTalk Adapter Pack on any IDOC to send the IDOC to the SAP Server. BizTalk Adapter Service uses BizTalk Adapter Pack to connect to an SAP Server.

Fabrikam uses the Transform component available with BizTalk Services to create a map to transform the PO message in X12 format into the schema required by the SAP Server to invoke the Send operation on the ORDERS05 IDOC.
Fabrikam uses the Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services Portal available with BizTalk Services to create and deploy an EDI agreement under the BizTalk Services subscription that processes the X12 850 PO message. As part of the message processing, the agreement also does the following:
1. Receives an X12 850 PO message over FTP.
2. Transforms the X12 PO message into the schema required by the SAP Server using the transform created earlier.
3. Routes the transformed message to the XML One-Way Bridge that eventually routes the message to a relay endpoint created for sending a PO message to an SAP Server. Fabrikam earlier exposed (as explained in bullet 1 above) the Send operation on ORDERS05 IDOC as a relay endpoint, to enable partners to send PO messages using BizTalk Adapter Service.

Once this is set up, Contoso drops an X12 850 PO message to the FTP location. This message is consumed by the EDI receive pipeline, which processes the message, transforms it to an ORDERS05 IDOC, and routes it to the intermediary XML bridge. The bridge then routes the message to the relay endpoint on Service Bus, which is then sent to the on-premises SAP Server. The following illustration represents the same scenario.

SAP Integraiton scenario

How to Use This Article

This tutorial is written around a sample, SAPIntegration, which is available as part of the download (SAPIntegration.zip) from the MSDN Code Gallery. You could either use the SAPIntegration sample and go through this tutorial to understand how the sample was built or just use this tutorial to create your own application.

This tutorial is targeted towards the second approach so that you get to understand how this application was built. Also, to be consistent with the sample, the names of artifacts (e.g. schemas, transforms, etc.) used in this tutorial are same as that in the sample.

The sample available from the MSDN code gallery contains only half the solution, which can be developed at design-time on your computer. The sample cannot include the configuration that you must do on the BizTalk Services Portal on Azure.

For that, you must follow the steps in this tutorial to set up your EDI bridge. Even though Microsoft recommends that you follow the tutorial to best understand the concepts and procedures, if you really wish to use the sample, this is what you should do:

Download the SAPIntegration.zip package, extract the SAPIntegration sample and make relevant changes like providing your service namespace, issuer name, issuer key, SAP Server details, etc. After changing the sample, deploy the application to get the endpoint URL at which the XML One-Way Bridge is deployed.
Use the BizTalk Services Portal to configure the Receive settings as described at Step 5: Create and Deploy the EDI Receive Pipeline and follow the procedures to route messages from the EDI Receive bridge to the XML One-Way Bridge you already deployed.
Drop a test message at the FTP location configured as part of the agreement and verify that the application works as expected.
- If the message is successfully processed, it will be routed to the SAP Server and you can verify the ORDERS IDOC using the SAP GUI.
- If the EDI agreement fails to process the message, the failure/error messages are routed to a relay endpoint on Service Bus. To receive such messages, you must set up a relay receiver service that receives any message that comes to that specific relay endpoint. More details on why you need this service and how to use it are available at Step 6: Test the Solution.

Steps in the Solution :

Step 1: Set up Your Computer
Step 2: Expose a Relay Endpoint to Invoke Operations on ORDERS05 IDOC
Step 3: Transform the X12 850 PO Message to the ORDERS05 Message
Step 4: Create and Deploy the XML Bridge
Step 5: Create and Deploy the EDI Receive Pipeline
Step 6: Test the Solution

Step 1: Set up Your Computer

This topic provides you with instruction and pointers to set up your computer on which you will perform the steps to set up the hybrid integration scenario described in Tutorial: Using Azure BizTalk Services to Integrate with an On-Premises SAP Server. You must do the following to set up your computer:

Install Microsoft Azure BizTalk Services SDK. You can download the installer from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=235057. You use this SDK to configure and deploy the XML One-Way Bridge that sits between the EDI agreement and the relay endpoint.
Install BizTalk Adapter Service. You use this to expose the Send operation on an IDOC as a relay endpoint on Service Bus.You can download the installer from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=235057. Refer to the BizTalk Services installation guide at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=237092 to install the software prerequisites for BizTalk Services SDK and BizTalk Adapter Service.
Install the WCF LOB Adapter SDK. This is required for installing the Adapter Pack on the computer.
Install the Adapter Pack. This contains the SAP adapter that is required to establish connectivity to an SAP Server and for exposing SAP artifacts as operations.
Install the SAP client libraries. The SAP adapter needs these libraries to connect to an SAP Server. For information on where to install the SAP client libraries from, refer to the Adapter Pack installation guide (BizTalkAdapterPack_InstallationGuide.htm) at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=240161.
Download and extract the EDI message schemas (MicrosoftEdiXSDTemplates.zip) available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=235057. This contains the X12 850 Purchase Order message schema that is required for the business scenario we use for this article.

After you have finished installing and downloading these components, you are ready to start setting up the business scenario.

Step 2: Expose a Relay Endpoint to Invoke Operations on ORDERS05 IDOC

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Updated: November 21, 2013

There are two main steps required to expose an SAP artifact as an operation that can be invoked by sending a message over Service Bus – create an LOB Target and an LOB Relay.

An LOB Target defines how an Azure application communicates to the Line-of-Business (LOB) system. The LOB Target controls the LOB system connection URI, the operation to perform, and the connection credentials.
An LOB Relay is a WCF service running within an organizations firewall and listens to a relay endpoint on the Service Bus. As the name suggests, the LOB Relay acts as a relay between the Service Bus relay endpoint and the LOB system. It receives the message at the Service Bus relay endpoint and passes it on to the relevant LOB system using the LOB Target configuration.

For more information, see BizTalk Adapter Service Architecture. In this topic, we will create an LOB Target and an LOB Relay to expose the Send operation on the ORDERS05 IDOC.

To create an LOB Target and LOB Relay

Open Visual Studio (as an administrator), create a new BizTalk Service project, and name it SAPIntegration.
You first start with adding a BizTalk Adapter Service server. This is the server where you installed the Runtime component of BizTalk Adapter Service. To add a BizTalk Adapter Service server, from the Server Explorer in Visual Studio, right-click BizTalk Adapter Services, and select Add BizTalk Adapter Service. In the Add BizTalk Adapter Service dialog box, enter the URL of the WCF service that monitors that Service Bus relay service, and then click OK.
Because you have all the components of BizTalk Adapter Service installed on the same computer, the URL for that service will be http://localhost:8080/BAService/ManagementService.svc/.

Note

If you had installed BizTalk Adapter Service Runtime component on a separate computer, you would have replaced ‘localhost’ in the above URL with the name of that computer.

Note
If you had installed BizTalk Adapter Service Runtime component on a separate computer, you would have replaced ‘localhost’ in the above URL with the name of that computer.

In this tutorial we are creating an application to integrate with SAP, so we must add an SAP target. Expand the newly added server, expand LOB Types, right-click SAP, and select Add SAP Target.

Add an SAP Target The Add a Target wizard starts. Perform the following steps to create an LOB Target.

Read the information on the Before You Begin page, and then click Next.
On the Connection Parameters page, specify the details for the SAP Server to connect to and the credentials to use for the connection. Click Next.
On the Operations page, expand the ORDERSO5 IDOC category (under \IDOC\ORDERS\). There are several versions of the IDOC available. For this tutorial, we’ll select ORDERS05.V3(700). Expand this IDOC, select Send, and then click the right arrow to add it to the Selected Operations box.
Click Next.
In the Runtime Security page, specify the security mechanism to be used by the LOB Server to authenticate the target resource when a message arrives from a client. For this tutorial, select Fixed Username and specify the credentials to connect to the SAP server.

On the Deployment page, you create an LOB Relay and an LOB Target to provide connectivity to your on-premise LOB applications from the cloud.

Select the Create new option to create a new relay and provide the following values:

Name	Description
Namespace	Specify the Service Bus namespace on which the LOB relay endpoint is created.
Issuer name	Specify the issuer name for the Service Bus namespace
Issuer secret	Specify the issuer secret for the Service Bus namespace
Relay path	Specify a name for the relay. For this tutorial, enter sapintegration01.
Target sub-path	Enter a sub-path to make this target unique. For this tutorial, enter orders.

The Target runtime URL read-only property displays the URL where the relay is deployed on Service Bus. This is the path where you could send a message to be inserted into the on-premises SAP Server. In our scenario, this is where the bridge sends the message.

Click Next.

On the Summary page, review the values you specified in the previous steps, and then click Create.
When the wizard completes, click Finish.
In Visual Studio Server Explorer, you now have an entry under the SAP node. This represents the relay endpoint created in Service Bus to relay PO messages coming from the cloud to the on-premises SAP system.

To add schemas

After adding the relay endpoint to an SAP system, you must add schemas that to send ORDERS05 PO messages to the SAP server. To add the schemas, right-click the relay endpoint and select Add schemas to SAPIntegration. In the dialog box, do the following:
- Enter a filename prefix that will be included in the name of each schema file that is generated. For this tutorial, specify this as SAPIntegration_.
- Enter a folder name that will be added to your solution under which all the schemas will be added. For this tutorial, specify the folder name as LOB Schemas.
- Enter the credentials to connect to an SAP system.
Click OK. The schemas are added to the project under an LOB Schemas folder.

To use the LOB Target

Right-click anywhere on the BizTalk Service project design surface, select Properties and update the BizTalk Service URL property to include your BizTalk Services name. This is the name that you provided in Azure Management Portal while provisioning the BizTalk Services.
Set the security property for the relay endpoint.
1. Right-click the LOB Target in Server Explorer and select Properties.
2. In the Properties grid, click the ellipsis (…) against the Runtime Security property.
3. In the Edit Security dialog box, select Fixed Username and specify username and password to connect to the SAP Server.
4. Click OK.
Drag and drop the LOB Target onto the design surface. Note the Entity Name property of the LOB Target. The default value is Relay-Path_target-sub-path. If using the examples above, it will be sapintegration01_orders.
Open the .config file for the LOB Target, which typically has the naming convention as YourRelayPath_target-sub-path.config. Specify the Service Bus issuer name and issuer secret, as shown below:
<sharedSecret issuerName="owner" issuerSecret="issuer_secret" />
Save changes to the config file.

Step 3: Transform the X12 850 PO Message to the ORDERS05 Message

Both the X12 850 schemas and ORDERS05 schemas are pretty complex and require functional expertise in the respective domains to understand and create maps between the two schemas.

While you already generated the schema for ORDERS05 IDOC, you can get the schema for X12 PO message (X12_00401_850.xsd) from the MicrosoftEdiXSDTemplates.zip that you must have downloaded and extracted before. You must add the X12_00401_850.xsd schema as well to the SAPIntegration project.

Creating a transform between the X12 850 PO and ORDERS05 PO requires functional domain knowledge of both the X12 schema and the ORDERS05 schema.

Only then one can identify which field in the X12 schema maps to which field in the ORDERS05 schema. In this tutorial, we do not get into such details and instead use an existing transform (AzureTransformations.trfm) between these two schemas. This transform is available as part of the SAPIntegration project that you can download from the MSDN Code Gallery.

To include the transform in the BizTalk Service project, right-click the project name, click Add, click Existing Items, and then navigate to the location where you downloaded the SAPIntegration sample from the MSDN Code Gallery. Select the AzureTransformations.trfm and then click Add.

Step 4: Create and Deploy the XML Bridge

In this topic, you create an XML One-Way Bridge that will act as a connector between the EDI Receive bridge and the relay endpoint for the ORDERS05 IDOC in SAP. After configuring the bridge, you connect it to the SAP relay endpoint, and then deploy the solution.

To configure the XML Bridge

In the SAPIntegration project, from the Solution Explorer, double-click the MessageFlowItinerary.bcs file to open the bridge configuration surface.
Right-click anywhere on the BizTalk Service project design surface, select Properties, and update the BizTalk Service URL property to include your BizTalk Services name. This is the name that you provided in Azure Management Portal while provisioning the BizTalk Services.
From the Toolbox, drag and drop the XML One-Way Bridge component to the bridge design surface.
Right-click the XML One-Way Bridge, select Properties, and change the value for Entity Name and Relative Address properties to B2BConnector. As a result, the complete endpoint URL where the bridge is deployed, which is shown in the Runtime Address property, will resemble https://<mybiztalkservicename>.biztalk.windows.net/default/B2BConnector. This is where the EDI Receive bridge sends the ORDERS05 PO message.
Double-click the XML One-Way Bridge to open the Bridge Configuration design surface. Because this bridge only routes the message from the EDI Receive bridge to the relay endpoint, there’s not much configuration required for each stage in the bridge stage other than specifying the message types of the message that this bridge routes. To specify the message type, on the XML One-Way Bridge design surface, within the Message Types box, click the add icon [ ] to open the Message Type Picker dialog box.
In the Message Type Picker dialog box, from the Available message types box, select the schema for the request message and then click the right arrow icon [ ], and then click OK. For this tutorial, select the Send schema (http://Microsoft.LobServices.Sap/2007/03/Idoc/3/ORDERS05//700/Send). The selected schema should now be listed under the Request Message Type box.
Save the bridge configuration.

To connect the bridge to the relay endpoint

In the SAPIntegration project, from the Toolbox, select the Connection component, and connect the XML One-Way Bridge component with the SAP relay endpoint you already added in Step 2: Expose a Relay Endpoint to Invoke Operations on ORDERS05 IDOC.
Set the filter condition on the connection. The routing condition for this scenario is to route all messages to the LOB Target. To do so, select the connecting line, and from the Properties grid, click the ellipsis (…) against the Filter Condition property, and then select Match All. This ensures that all messages that come to the bridge are routed to the relay endpoint.
Set the Route Action property on the connection. Before you set the route action, we must understand why it is required. The message sent from the EDI receive bridge to the relay endpoint must have the Action SOAP header set on it. This header defines what operation must be performed on the SAP system. The message that comes from the EDI receive pipeline does not have this header set. Hence, in this intermediary XML bridge, you set the route action on the message before it is sent the relay endpoint. As part of the route action, you add the required header on the message. Perform the following steps to set the route action.
1. Find out the value that will be set for the Action SOAP header message. To do so, right-click the SAP relay endpoint from the Server explorer, and from the Properties grid, expand Operations, and copy the value. For this tutorial, the value is http://Microsoft.LobServices.Sap/2007/03/Idoc/3/ORDERS05//700/Send.
2. Go back to the bridge configuration surface, select the connection between the bridge and the SAP relay, and from the Properties grid, click the ellipsis (…) against the Route Action property. In the Route Actions dialog box, click Add to open the Add Route Action dialog box. In the Add Route Action dialog box, do the following:
  - Under Property (Read From) section, select Expression and specify the value that you copied earlier.
    
    Important
    
    Make sure you specify the value for Expression within single quotes.
  - Under Destination (Write-To) section, set the Type to SOAP and the Identifier to Action.
  - Click OK in the Add Route Action dialog box to add the route action. Click OK in the Route Actions dialog box and then click Save to save changes to an Enterprise Application Integration project.
Save the project. The final bridge configuration resembles the following:

Important
Make sure you specify the value for Expression within single quotes.

To deploy the solution

In Visual Studio, right click the SAPIntegration solution, and then click Build Solution.
Once the build succeeds, right click the SAPIntegration solution, and then click Deploy Solution.
In the deployment window, the Deployment Endpoint is a read-only property and the value is derived from the BizTalk Service URL/Namespace set in the message flow surface. However, you must provide the ACS Namespace for BizTalk Services, Issuer Name, and Shared Secret.
Click Deploy. The Visual Studio Output pane displays the deployment progress and result. The URL where the bridge is deployed is also displayed in the Output pane. For this tutorial, the bridge is deployed at http://<mybiztalkservicename>.biztalk.windows.net/default/B2BConnector.

App, Apps, Architecture, Azure, C#, Cloud, Custom Development, For Sale, Microsoft Best Patterns & Practices, Office 365, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint Online, Visual Studio 2013, Web Part

New “Filter My ListView” SharePoint Web Part and App now available for SP 2010 & 2013 On-premise and Office 365!!

March 17, 2014 Sharepoint Samurai Leave a comment

What is it?

The “Filter My ListView” Web Part / App is a SharePoint WebPart enables you to create custom filter to find information in SharePoint list or document library.

Why do you need it?

In working with SharePoint and with large lists or document libraries containing 100K+ items, users frequently found that there is no usable tool for filtering data.

SharePoint let us create views, but their functionality doesn’t meet the requirements of users. And most popular reason is this: list view is static and users can’t modify it on the fly.

On the other hand the “Filter My List” web part may filter data representing in the current view’s columns. But user can’t apply multiple filter to list and others (date range, filter criteria, …).

All this leads to the fact that we have to have custom solution this solving these limitations.

Usage

The “Filter My ListView” Web Part / App is a simple to use SharePoint list view filter. It enables your to create custom filter form, composed from all list fields (not only fields containing in current list view).

Supported field types

Simple text

jQuery UI is used for using autocomplete!

Text with options enables select filtering type

Text with filtering options

Date

DateRange

Boolean

DropDown list represents unique values of field

User or Group

Taxonomy Term Picker

Multi-select CheckBoxList

The “Filter My ListView” Web Part / App builds a filter form using different types of controls:

TextBox. “Contains” criteria filter
TextBox with autocomplete
TextBox with options. Allows user to choose filter criteria that can be one of these:
- Equals
- Not equals
- Contains
- Begins with
Date
Date Range
DropDownList
DropDownList with multiple selection
People picker
MetaData picker

Relation between field type and supported filter types is represented in this matrix:

Contact me now through my blog, https://sharepointsamurai.wordpress.com or at tomas.floyd@outlook.com for this and more SharePoint and Office 365 custom developed Web Parts and Apps

SharePoint Samurai