Two customization packages customizing the same screen - acumatica

Is it possible to have two separate customization packages modifying the same screen / screen section (e.g., header) in the same instance? I'm running into a conflict during validation because of this. What's the best way to alleviate that issue?

As long as you are using the extensibility framework (AEF) you should be able to. Also make sure you set your customization publish levels to different values found on the customization screen where you create and maintain your list of customization. What changes have you made? More details will better help answer your question.

I realized from talking with other developers that increasing the level allows this to compile.
Thanks, Brendan.

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Coded UI for Sharepoint Portals

I am new for Coded UI. We want to use Coded UI to test Sharepoint portals.While running few tests, we came across the following questions.
How does it support if control Id's are generated dynamically?
How much support does it give to test Sharepoint out of box features?
Does it support Third-party asp.net controls?
Please let me know if you have any conclusion for these questions and also share the limitations of Coded UI for Sharepoint features.
Please provided useful links if any.
How does it support if control Id's are generated dynamically?
We have a (non Sharpoint) project with this situation. No problems until now. The record-tool finds normally enough informations (name, position, content, parent) to identify the control.
How much support does it give to test Sharepoint out of box features?
Sorry I haven't expirience to this, but can't imaging that there are to many problems.
Does it support Third-party asp.net controls?
Yes. We use controls form DevExpress - works fine.
Links
In this case I can really recommend you the MSDN Pages to this topic. They provide some good hints in context of working with CUIT.

How to secure content in Orchard CMS

I'd like to use the roles and membership ability of Orchard CMS to limit access to a staff portal in Orchard CMS. At present there doesn't look like there's an out of the box way to do it.
I've found numerous references to modules that should be able to help out but none seem to work.
Very Simple Permissions is a codeplex item suggested by some that has a dead link nowadays and doesn't seem to exist on codeplex.
Science Project: Quanta destroys my site everytime I try to install it with a missing dll issue, and not sure if its what I need anyways.
Does anyone have any guidance as to how to either: show/hide menu items based on roles using the standard menu system or advanced menu plugin
or
limit content visibility based on roles. If its a module fantastic, otherwise don't mind getting my hands dirty with some coding but a point in the right way to do this mvc style would be great. I'm going to presume I need to edit the controller for the menu module to check for current membership and adjust the view data accordingly. I'm moving away from webforms. slowly. Still getting my head around the framework.
Thanks for checking in.
For those who are still struggling with this, there's a module is called ContentPermissions which is available here:
gallery.orchardproject.net/List/Modules/Orchard.Module.Orchard.ContentPermissions
Once installed, you can then add the ContentPermissionsPart to the Content Type you want to secure.
Quanta really is what you want. You are probably missing one of its dependencies. Pete, the author, is also super-active on the CodePlex forums so if you ask there, you'll get an answer.
UPDATE: Orchard 1.5.1, the current version as I'm writing this update, supports content item permissions and menu trimming out of the box.

determine SharePoint features that are actually used

Is there a way to determine what features are actually being used by the site.
Not activated, but actually being used.
IE. FeatureA is used in /SiteA or /SiteB/Lists/ListA
I know what features are activated and have tool from codeplex to extract the deployed features as a .wsp file.
I want to cleanup the server and generate a development box from production. Last SP admin used the production server as his play area and installed a ton of features which are not used.
Would this data be available through the SharePoint Object Model, database, or some obscure area of the site setting pages?
Thanks
The short answer is no. The long answer - it really depends on the nature of the feature. Some features, such as those that add items to the menus/ribbons, are "used" only when the button is actually clicked, so the question is pretty meaningless here. If someone uses the feature button from time to time, you have no way of knowing, unless you are willing to ask everyone what they are using.

Can you integrate a custom help desk application into SharePoint?

I know next to nothing about SharePoint, so maybe this isn't something you can/should do, or maybe it's something completely trivial, I don't know, but we have a custom in-house help desk application at work, and I'm wondering if it can be integrated into our help desk SharePoint site somehow?
I really don't know what's possible with SharePoint, so any ideas or thoughts on this matter would be appreciated.
The short answer is yes but the amount of time required to make this work will be directly related to your flexibility / needs. Would you be satisfied with default SharePoint lists / forms? Do you need to retrieve and update data hosted in an external source? Do you really need this integrated with SharePoint or simply hosted under the same URL?
I've found that SharePoint can do anything but the time required to make it meet the needs of a demanding/inflexible business user is sometimes significant.
There is also the issue of doing right or simply making it work. Making it work buys you some time initially but you can easily dig yourself a very deep hole that is difficult to escape. My suggestion is to keep the solution as simple and maintainable as possible.
Pretty much anything that can go on a webform can go in a webpart - with obvious complications, but yes it would work. Look into webpart development.
I would try to stick to the features that SharePoint is already offering you. You can achieve a lot by using them, and enriching them with a few simple workflows.
If you want to add some workflow logic to your solution, then try to avoid the designer workflows, since they have some issues when it comes to deployment(in short: you cant). So even if it looks easier to design them in Designer, you will pay a price later when you want to deploy them to production (You have a staging/development enviroment?)
In general I would also agree with mayos answer
Anything is possible...but check out the MSDN reference for integrating with SharePoint:
Integration with Office SharePoint Server

Modifying SharePoint System Files

What is the general feeling amongst developers regarding the changing of files in the 12 hive.
For example if you were asked to remove the sign is a different user menu item, you would need to modify the relevent user control on the filesystem. Now if you just go and modify it via notepad or copy over and then if you go and bring a new server into the farm you will need to remember to do the same on the new server.
Obvouisly you could deploy the changed file as a solution and have that done automatically, but I'm just wondering if people are hesitant to make changes to the default installed files?
I have done a bit of SharePoint development, and I must tell you that messing with the 12-hive is a ticket to a world of pain if you ever want to move the app.
I'd rather hack up some javascript to hide it, at least that can be bound to the master page, which is much more portable.
And remember, you never know when the next service pack comes around and nukes your changes :)
I agree with Lars. Sometimes you will not be able to avoid it, depending on your needs. But, in general the best policy is to avoid modification if at all possible.
I know that some of the other menu items in the current user menu (change login, my settings, etc) can be changed by removing permissions from the user. Under Users and Groups there is an option for permissions. I can't remember the exact setting (develop at work, not at home), but there are reasonable descriptions next to each of the 30+ permissions. Remove it and you start hiding menu options. No modifications to the 12-hive needed.
There is a very simple rule: if you want to keep official support from Microsoft, don't change any of the files in the 12 hive that are installed by SharePoint.
I've never encountered a situation where the only solution was to change such a file. For example if you want to change an out-of-the-box user control of SharePoint, you can do so by making use of the DelegateControl, and overriding it in a feature.
More info:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms463169.aspx
http://www.devx.com/enterprise/Article/36628
I know it's tempting to quickly change a file, and I have to admit sometimes I just do that on a DEV box, but don't go there on a production server!
Not sure if there is much use pitching in, as everyone else pretty much has it covered, but I would also say don't do it. As tempting as it is, its just impossible to know the full impact of that little change you have made.
From a support perspective you will make it difficult for Microsoft support (patches/hotfixes).
From a maintenance perspective you are also opening yourself up to long term costs.
Go the javascript route.
The way to go about it is to use a Sharepoint Solution (WSP) file.
To change the user control, create a new Sharepoint feature with the new functionality.
Include this feature in your solution.
Deploy the solution either using the stsadm command line, or through Central Site Admin.
This will then get automatically deployed to all the servers in your farm, and it avoids you overwriting anything default sharepoint files.
For more info, check out Sharepoint Nuts and Bolts blog on http://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/ which give an introduction to WSP and Sharepoint Features.
I've done this many times and I will speak from experience: Never ever touch the onet.xml files within the 12 hive under any circumstance. Any error that you make in there, and to make the CAML even more complex the file is largely whitespace sensitive, will have an impact on every part of SharePoint.
You should also consider that aside from the substantial risk to the installation, you may well be building in dependencies upon your changes that are then over-written in a future patch or service pack.
Most of the time, you can accomplish everything you want to using features and solution packages without modifying the files. However, there are a few (rather annoying) rare cases where your only option would be to modify a file on the system. I have used it for two particular cases so far. One was to add the PDF iFilter to the docicon.xml file, and the other was to add a theme to the themes.xml file. In both cases, it seemed to be the only way to achieve the goal. Still, we used a solution package to write those files out to all the servers in the farm.

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