The security validation for this page is invalid in SharePoint

Sometimes, when a user with least permissions in the SharePoint site, creates or updates an item, then the following error will be shown:

“The security validation for this page is invalid. Click Back in your Web browser, refresh the page, and try your operation again”

When you are creating a custom web parts or creating custom solutions, your code will run with your credentials.

Not everybody has full control in the SharePoint site, so when a user has read only rights and try to update an item in the list or SharePoint Document library, then the code will throw an access denied error. This happens, when the code needs access to objects that are not in the scope of the user credentials.

Here comes the concept called impersonation (ability to control the identity under which code is executed) in ASP.Net. This will allow you to run your code with the help of a user who has correct permissions to run it.

Namespace: Microsoft.SharePoint
Assembly   : Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)

In SharePoint we have built-in function to accomplish this: SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges, it runs with the System Account User.

Solutions:

1. Add the “SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges = True” in the code as shown in the example below:

Check the full code usage in this post http://sharepoint-works.blogspot.com/2011/12/programmatically-creating-site-backup.html

2. Or in the Central Administration -> Application Management -> Web Application General Settings -> Select web application
In Web Page Security Validation, change security validation is off.

Note: The 2^nd solution is should not be followed as per the best practices of SharePoint.

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Workflows in SharePoint

What is a Workflow in SharePoint?

Ø  In simple words, we can say workflow is a serious of activities occurs in steps which will produce an output at the final step.

Ø  In SharePoint, workflow is an automated movement of documents or items through a sequence of actions or tasks that are related to a business process. 

Ø  Business process is a sequence of steps that occurs on a document or a task or an item and finally produces a result as an outcome.

Types of Workflows

Basically, there are two fundamental types of workflows in the SharePoint:
                       

   1.   Sequential workflow

It represents the steps that execute in order until the completion of last activity. It is represented graphically in flowchart with start, end and all the sequential activities in between.

Example

   
  2.   State-Machine workflow

It represents a set of states, transitions and actions. As sequential workflows, it does not have prescribed execution flow and need not have an end. It can have any number of states and transition and it can any items related to any transition.

Example

The different types of workflow in the various versions of SharePoint present by default are listed below:

Ways for creating workflows in SharePoint

The different ways of creating the workflows in SharePoint are as follows:

    1.   In SharePoint site directly

    2.   SharePoint Designer

    3.   Microsoft Visual Studio with workflow extensions installed (WWF- Windows Workflow Foundation) – basically called custom workflows

    4.   Third party tools like K2 Black Perl, Nintex, etc.,

What are the pre-requisites for creating a workflow in SharePoint?

    1.  There should be a at least one list or document library to create and associate a workflow.

    2.   If you do not have a single list or document library in your site, you will be prompted for creating a list or library.

    3.   If you want your workflow to be associated with custom columns or settings in the site, then those changes should be made before you create the workflow so that it will be available in the designer.

Advantages

 Ø  Allow the business activities to be automated, enabling actions such as document review, approval, issue tracking and signature collection.

 Ø  Allow the document to be routed to one person to another for approval by assigning a task to each person. This is followed by analysis, review, and approval and finally the document is published. Hence making the document management easier.

 Ø  Also improves the collaboration in an enterprise.

To know about creating a designer workflow in SharePoint using SharePoint designer 2007, read this article.


To know about the new features added in SharePoint Designer 2010, read this article.

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Exporting SharePoint User Groups with Group Names

In the article Exporting SharePoint User Groups into Excel, we have learned about exporting the SharePoint user groups into excel. Here we are able to export all the users in a SharePoint site but we are unable to sort the users with the group name.

In this article, we will learn a small work around filter the users with the group name.

We can use SQL Query to fetch this data.

Connect to the SQL server and open a new query in the content database where your SharePoint site resides.

The SharePoint content DB does not expose the tables (for lists, libraries, users, etc.) in the database directly.

The below is the query which will fetch all the users in the SharePoint site with the user groups in a separate column in the result.
SELECT dbo.Groups.ID, dbo.Groups.Title, dbo.UserInfo.tp_Title, dbo.UserInfo.tp_Login FROM dbo.GroupMembership INNER JOIN dbo.Groups ON dbo.GroupMembership.SiteId = dbo.Groups.SiteId INNER JOIN dbo.UserInfo ON dbo.GroupMembership.MemberId = dbo.UserInfo.tp_ID

Hope this helps you!

Please free to comment. Always your comments makes me to write more!

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The Search Service is currently offline

Problem:

The search service is currently offline. Visit the services on server page in SharePoint central administration to verify whether the service is enabled. This might also be because an indexer move is in progress

You will get the below screen when you navigate to the default content access account, crawl log or default content access account in the Search Server Administration.

Resolution:

Following are the steps to fix this issue.

1. Open central administration
2. Goto Operations -> Topology and Services -> Services on Server
3. Select Search Indexing -> On “Office SharePoint Server Search” click “Stop”. This will reconfigure the service
4. Now click “start”
5. Navigate to the indexer log file location which is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0\Data\Office Server\Applications” for me. Here you will find a folder with Guid name. At the end of that folder add “_old”. Refresh the SSP page and wait for some time and now the indexer will recreate the guid folder.
6. This will fix this issue.

If this doesn't work out, then check the service account which is running the search service (default content access account for crawling the content). If there are any changes in the account, then this might also be the problem for the search service to go offline.

Please free to comment. Hope this helps you!

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Configuring Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010

Hi All,

Read the useful arcticle which explains about Configuring the Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010. A step by step explanation with screens is explained in this artcile.

Configuring Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010 

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