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All posts tagged SharePoint 2016

September 13, 2018
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Email an External User in a SharePoint 2013 Workflow

3D man with laptop
SharePoint, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016, Workflows , , , , 2

I am sure we can all agree that at some point or another we had a need to email a user that did not have an account within our domain via a SharePoint Designer (SPD) 2013 workflow.  And while attempting to set it up we were surprised to find out it wouldn’t work.  Not only did it NOT send the email, but to add insult to injury the attempt actually would suspend the workflow if forced to try.  If you have never had the need, well thanks for coming to my post anyways and let me tell you… it can’t be done.  An easy workaround is to build a SharePoint 2010 workflow, which doesn’t have this limitation, but then you lose the other fantastic benefits of a 2013 workflow.  Microsoft removed this ability as a security enhancement.  Today I am going to demonstrate how to email an external user in a SharePoint 2013 Workflow.

Quick note: Microsoft Flow does NOT have this limitation.  I am describing how to to it in SharePoint Designer because so many still use this tool

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July 26, 2018
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Proper way to handle workflows that throw a Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ActivityValidationException

Configuration
PowerShell, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016, TroubleShooting (SP 2013), Troubleshooting (SP 2016), Workflows , , , , , 0

I had to build a fairly complex workflow not long ago.  The workflow was built in SharePoint Designer 2013 and had a lot of moving parts to it.  So many, that when I went to publish it I received the following error message: “Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ActivityValidationException: Workflow XAML failed validation due to the following errors: Activity “SomeXActivity” has 65 arguments, which exceeds the maximum number of arguments per activity (50).”  This error message is actually telling us that our workflow has too many variables within it.  Basically, this is happening because when the workflow is running the Workflow Manager has to manage more 58 (in my case) variables.  Workflow Manager only allows there to be 50 variables in the workflow… by default.

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February 15, 2018
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Read XML Data Files Stored in a SharePoint Library with PowerShell

Programming2
PowerShell, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016 , , , , 0

I recently had a need to read data from an xml configuration file that was stored within a SharePoint library.  To make things easier I of course went to Google (or Bing) and checked to see if someone else had yet blogged this.  Couldn’t find anything, so in order to help out someone else that may need to do the same at some point, I wrote up a quick little blog.  Note: this will only work for on-premises versions of SharePoint.  I’ll update with a SharePoint Online version in the future.  I’ll also write up how to add and delete contents in a future post as well.

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January 18, 2018
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JavaScript files not Updating in Site Assets or other SharePoint Libraries

Configuration
SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016, Troubleshooting, TroubleShooting (SP 2013), Troubleshooting (SP 2016) , , , , 4

So ran into a very weird issue.  I had just finished patching our Dev and Test servers to the November 2017 CU.  And after this occurred, any updates to solutions using JavaScript injection was not working.  I’ll describe the problem in more detail here right away, but I want to make sure I give a call out to Trevor Seward.  Trevor blogs from The SharePoint Farm and kudos goes to him for pointing me at the Blob Cache (but I am getting ahead of myself).

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November 30, 2017
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SharePoint Best Practices – Content Types

Presentations
SharePoint, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016, SharePoint Online , , , , , 0

The other day I decided to start a power user best practice series.  I started with site columns and now the next logical step is content types.  I have found that many times experienced users don’t realise the importance of a properly setup content type.  Because of this, they often are recreating the same data, having to redo the content types  and in some cases blow them away and start over (both of which are a real pain if the CT is already being used).  The intent of this post is to cover the best ways to create your content types.

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