Why Use the Custom Zone for Administrators

The model logical architecture released a while ago by Microsoft for a corporate MOSS deployment includes a configuration that really had me wondering "Why?" - that is the use of the custom zone for administrative access to all the sites.

One answer I have come up with - by assigning a policy to the custom zone for the SharePoint administrator user group, and granting full control in this policy, then the administrators are guaranteed to have full control over all sites and content in the delpoyment. Note that this is assuming an AD group named "SharePoint Administrators" exists in the domain.

The permissions applied in a policy override all other permissions in sites, so even if a user with site admin rights had removed all explicit permissions for the SharePoint Administrators user group from their site, the policy enforces access.

Usernames in Data View Web Parts

Data View web parts by default offer the "friendly" name in the UserID parameter - if the logon username is required, find the ParameterBinding element with the name of UserID in the Data view's XSL, and change the Location attribute value from CAMLVariable to ServerVariable(LOGON_USER)

Modifying the Run Times of Recycle Bin Timer Jobs

See http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mattg/archive/2007/03/08/starting-timer-jobs-manually-recycle-bin.aspx for this.

And whilst on the subject of timer jobs, here's how to create one - http://andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2007/01/10/5704.aspx

Viewing Information Management Auditing Logs in MOSS

In the site in which an information management policy is active, activate the Reporting site collection feature. This will enable the link to the Audit Log Reports page in the site settings.

Log reports page URL: _layouts/reporting.aspx?Category=Auditing

Adding a Loopback Connector

Microsoft Loopback Adapter
a. Click Start, Control Panel, and open the Add Hardware wizard.
b. Click Next. Wait a moment while the wizard scans for hardware.
c. Select: Yes, I have already connected the hardware, click Next.
d. Scroll to the bottom of the list and select Add a new hardware device. Click Next.
e. Select: Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced). Click Next.
f. Select: Network adapters. Select: Microsoft. Select: Microsoft Loopback Adapter.
g. Click Next. Click Next again. Wait a moment. Click Finish.


Configure the Loopback Adapter
h. Click Start, Control Panel, and open the Network Connections utility.
i. Right-click the Microsoft Loopback Adapter connection and select Properties.
j. Double-click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
k. Now configure an address for this adapter. Select: Use the following addressIP Address: 10.50.50.1Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0Default gateway: You can ignore DNS. Click OK. Click OK again.

Post with WSS Field Names

Handy list of WSS field names at http://blog.thekid.me.uk/archive/2007/03/21/wss-field-display-amp-internal-names-for-lists-amp-document-libraries.aspx

Page Fails After Deleting a Connected Web Part

Had this problem a few times when removing a connected web part from a WSS v3.0 web part page using the web part menu in the browser - the deletion operation leaves behind a web part connection definition in the page, and the page then fails to render as the pre-processing notices that the target of this connection is missing.

Haven't yet traced the cause of the problem, as it occurs infrequently. I have a feeling that it is caused by custom code in other web parts on the page that attempt to fire that connnection - perhaps the connection definition is not removed because an element still uses it (even though that element was manually added in code).