Problem definition

1. Our corporate email platform is Exchange Online, a MSCloud service. 
2. Our SharePoint (SP) servers are cloud based but are not hosted at a MSCloud service.
3. I need to setup SP to send automatic email notifications when changes occur. 
4. SP Administration allows the email notifications configuration only with SMTP servers set for Anonymous access.
5. Exchange Online provides an SMTP host but only works with authenticated access.

I can’t seem to successfully relay emails from SharePoint using the SMTP provided by Exchange Online.



Solution in a Nutshell 

1. SharePoint should use a local SMTP server.
2. The local SMTP server should be configured to relay to Exchange Online using authentication and correct ports.
3. Exchange Online should be configured to accept messages from your IP Range.

Before you go forward

1. The solution has been tested with: SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Windows Server 2008 R2 within a development environment.

1ST: Local SMTP & SharePoint

1. Open the Server Manager, I normally right click over “Computer” and select the “Manage” option.



2. Select “Features” on the Server Manager window and confirm that the SMTP Server is installed. If not select the “Add feature” option. I will assume you have it installed.



3. In order to configure the SMTP Server you will need to open the IIS 6.0 Manager. I know you are using IIS 7, butyou will be opening the IIS 6 Management Console (installed when installing the SMTP Server feature). Open it.



4. Right click on the Virtual Server and select “Properties”. There find the name of the Fully-qualified domain name.





5. Open the SharePoint Central Administration, go to the “System Settings” section and click on the “Configure outgoing email settings” link.



6. Fill the form using first the FQDN you found on the step 4 and then fill the email address you will use to send the notifications. This email is the one hosted on Exchange Online.



2ND: SMTP Server settings

1. Open the SMTP properties (like the step 4 above).
2. Be sure that the section of IP Address says (All unassigned) and then click the “Advanced” button. Confirm that the port is 25.





3. On the tab “Access” click on the “Relay” button and add the IP addresses used by your network interfaces. (An ipconfig command on the command prompt would help).



4. Click on the “Outbound security” button on the “Delivery” tab. Be sure to select “Basic Authentication” and provide the correct credentials for the account specified before on the SP Central Administration (step 5 above). Then select the “TLS encryption” box and Ok to accept the changes.



5. From the same “Delivery” tab click on the “Outbound connections…” button. There modify the TCP port to 587.



6. From the same “Delivery” tab click on the “Advanced” button.

-          There check that the FQDN is the same than the one set on your SMTP.

-          The smart host is set to: smtp.mail.microsoftonline.com. There is a list of other smart hosts available for different geographical areas.

-          Be sure that the “Attempt direct delivery before sending to smart host” check box is not marked.

3RD: Exchange Online should be ready to accept communications from your SMTP

1. Go to the admin.microsoftonline.com page and authenticate with your administrative credentials.



2. Select Exchange Online from the “Service Settings” tab.



3. On the “Safe senders” section you can add new Safe senders be specifying domains or IPs. In this case you should add the public IPs (normally one) that your SP box uses.



After all this is done I would advise you to restart the SMTP and IIS services.

Now you are free to start setting up some email notifications on your SP sites. Just be sure that your user accounts have email addresses assigned.

Hello, howdy? Today tutorial will explain how to upgrade SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010.

Upgrade Steps

Run the Pre-Upgrade Check on the SharePoint 2007 Server

Execute the following command from the command line on the SharePoint 2007 server hosting the database to be upgraded:

stsadm –o preupgradecheck

This will scan the server for potential problems that may cause errors during the upgrade process.



Review the log file to get specifics on any issues.  The most likely cause will be features or customizations, so make sure that you uninstall any features or customizations that aren’t necessary on the new server.

Back Up Your 2007 Content Database

Back up your 2007 content database from SQL Management Studio on the SharePoint 2007 server, and put the backup file somewhere it is accessible from the new SharePoint 2010 Server instance.



Restore the 2007 Content Database to the SharePoint 2010 Database Instance

Connect to the SQL Server Instance hosting your SharePoint 2010 installation’s databases.  Restore the legacy content database from the backup file created in the step above.



Create a New SharePoint Web Application

Note:  If you have a Web Application created that you plan on using, skip this step and move onto the next step, “Detatch Any Content Databases from the Target Web Application”.

In Central Administration, select “Application Management” from the left navigation pane, and Manage Web Applications under the Web Applications heading.

Click the “New” button on the ribbon toolbar.



Under the “Database Name and Authentication” section, add “DELETETHIS” or something similar to the end of the database name to differentiate it.  We will be removing and deleting the generated content database.



Once completed, you should see the following success dialog:



Detach Any Content Databases from the Target Web Application

In Central Administration –> Application Management, select “Manage Content Databases” under the Database heading.

Select the target web application in the “Web Application” drop-down box at the top left, if it is not already selected.



Ensure there are no content databases for the target web application.  If the list contains any content databases, click on each content database name.  On the “Manage Content Database Settings” screen, select the “remove content database” checkbox and click OK.



Note: Make sure to log into your SharePoint 2010 SQL Server Instance at your convenience and delete any orphaned content databases that were removed from the web application in the step above.

Run The Powershell Test-SPContentDatabase Cmdlet

Launch the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell available under Start->Programs –> Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.  (Note: If running on a development/client instance on Windows 7 x64, ensure you launch the management console with administrative privileges by right clicking the icon and selecting “Run as administrator”).

Run the Test-SPContentDatabase command from the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell PowerShell window with the following syntax:

Test-SPContentDatabase –Name [DBName] –WebApplication [URL]



This tool will scan your Content DB and search for any references to Web Parts or Features that are missing on your SharePoint 2010 installation.  Each error will indicate whether or not it will block the upgrade, and gives a useful remedy for each issue.

Any issues not marked as Upgrade Blocking can be resolve post-upgrade. 

Restore the Content Database Using STSADM.EXE

Using the stsadm.exe tool, run the addcontentdb command using the syntax below:

stsadm –o addcontentdb –url [URL] –databasename [DBName]



Once executed, the command window will update with a progress indicator as seen in the screenshot above.  Once it is complete, you will either receive one of two messages:

Operation Completed Successfully

or

Upgrade completed with errors.  Review the upgrade log file located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS\Upgrade-[DateStamp]-[ids].log.  The number of errors and warnings is listed at the end of the upgrade log file.

You can also review the upgrade status in the Central Administration web application under Upgrade and Migration –> Check Upgrade Status.



This report contains the location of the log file for the upgrade process for future reference.

Review any upgrade errors and resolve before moving forward.

Accessing the Upgraded Site and Visual Upgrade

Accessing the Upgraded Site

Open a new web browser instance and navigate to the URL for the web application you upgraded.



You will notice the site retains the same SharePoint 2007 look and feel.  This was done deliberately to allow upgrading to SharePoint 2010 without introducing drastic interface changes to the client base. 

Optional: Visual Upgrade

SharePoint 2010 offers a simple method for upgrading the existing site to the new SharePoint 2010 look-and-feel. 

From the Site Actions menu at the top left, click “Visual Upgrade”.



From the “Site Settings –> Title Description and Icon” page, enter any site metadata you want to upgrade, and click the “Update the User Interface” radio button under the “Visual Upgrade” section as seen below.  Click “OK”.



You will now be returned back to your site’s main page with the updated SharePoint 2010 look-and-feel.

This morning I tried to upload a video file to our SharePoint 2010 install in preparation for a presentation tonight and then realised that the default 50mb file size limit was still set so while I was changing the settings to allow larger files I thought I would do a quick post on how/where the setting is and what to change.

First of all login to Central Admin and navigate to

Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Web Applications

Once there highlight the web application that you want to change and then click on general settings

Once in general settings scroll to the bottom of the list and you will see the maximum upload size the default setting is 50mb this can be can set to a maximum size of 2047mb. If you try to go beyond this it does flag up and tell you that you have exceeded the Maximum size.

The Sharepoint Designer has a lot of great features. While we won’t discuss every one of them here, we will take a look at some of the most noteworthy below. The reusable workflow, Designer ribbon, customized out-of the-box workflows and workflow action prompts, are the ones we will look at more in-depth.

1. Reusable workflow: This is a new feature, added since the 2007 version of the system was released. This particular feature makes it possible for individuals to create workflows that can be applied to as many libraries and/or lists as required by the company. The SharePoint Designer workflow settings page can be used to attach the reusable workflow to the library or list. Reusable workflow also makes it possible to forgo building a check content type action right into the workflow. This is one less step for IT and makes life a bit easier for everyone involved.

2. The Designer Ribbon: The Designer Ribbon provides the user access to many of the tools necessary to create workflows. Instead of having to pull up commonly used commands, one-by-one most can be found on the Sharepoint Designer Ribbon, making the workflow creator’s job much easier, significantly speeding up the development process.

3. Workflow action prompt: This prompt allows users to input their workflow logic into the workflow. The workflow action prompt will automatically make suggestions that match the information a person is inputting. This helps speed up the process and improves efficiency.

4. SharePoint Designer and Microsoft Visio Premium 2010 Import/Export: This is a brand new feature. It allows individuals to build workflows using Visio and also those exported into the Sharepoint Designer. Users will have access to every condition and action found within the Designer when they use the Microsoft SharePoint Workflow template found in the template section (Flowcharts) in Visio. If a person has already developed workflows in Sharepoint Designer, they can import them into Visio.

Sharepoint Designer is tool for creating workflows. Sharepoint has added a number of excellent features since the 2007 version. Though there are many, we’ve chosen to highlight only a few. Workflow action prompts, Two Way Import/Export of Sharepoint Designer and Microsoft Visio Premium, the Designer Ribbon and the Reusable workflow feature are just a few the new ones offered in the 2010 version of Sharepoint Designer, which weren’t in the 2007 version. For a comprehensive listing of features, individuals will want to visit the product’s homepage. There, individuals will find a complete listing of everything that’s included

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Features are SharePoint Server 2010–specific declarative (XML) programming elements. Features configure, associate, define, create, and copy.

Features are most commonly used for the following:
- To define the columns that make up list types and the fields that the columns are based on
- To copy Web parts and master pages to their respective galleries
- To associate Visual Studio workflows with a list or site
- To modify and extend the configuration of the SharePoint Server 2010 user interface
- To serve as a control panel that allows code and configuration changes to be turned on and off in the browse

Note: Features can affect four different scopes: farm, Web application, site collection, and site. Site-scoped and site collection–scoped features can be controlled by information workers, which allows farm administrators to delegate responsibility for them

Feature Location:

Features are XML files and must be contained in a folder in C:\Programs Files\CommonFiles\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES

Basic Know-how:

Features are generally composed of two types of files: a feature header file and one or more element files. Because the feature files are simply XML and because they are located in TEMPLATE\FEATURES, they can be easily inspected by browsing to the appropriate folder and examining the contents of the files. Feature header files are generally named Feature.XML

Feature Life Cycle

There is a four-stage feature life cycle
- Features are installed, activated, deactivated, and uninstalled
- Features can be manipulated with Stsadm.exe, Central Administration,and Windows Power Shell
- Features are deployed using solution packages with either full-trust or sandboxed deployment mechanisms

How to install a Feature:

Features are deployed with solution packages and should be automatically installed when deployed. Although it is uncommon to have to manually install features, you should know what the installation process does to install features

To install a feature, the necessary feature files must already be deployed to the TEMPLATE\FEATURES directory on all servers in the farm. Installing a feature simply makes it available to be activated. Any installed feature that does not have the property Hidden=True can be seen and activated through the SharePoint Server 2010 user interface

Features must be installed using either Stsadm.exe or Windows Power-Shell.

Stsadm.exe is located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN. To install a feature using Stsadm.exe, use the following
command:

stsadm.exe -o installfeature {-filename | -name } [-force]

To install a feature using Windows PowerShell, use the following command:

Install-SPFeature -Path [-AssignmentCollection ] [-Confirm []] [-Force ] [-WhatIf []] []

How to Activate/Deactivate features:

To activate or deactivate a farm-scoped feature using Central Administration, do the following:

- Browse to Central Administration, System Settings, Manage Farm Features
- Click either the feature’s Activate or Deactivate button
- To deactivate a feature, confirm the deactivation

Activating Web application–scoped features in Central Administration has changed considerably and is now accomplished using the new management Ribbon

To activate a Web application–scoped feature, do the following:
- Browse to Central Administration, Application Management, Manage Web Applications
- Click the row that contains the Web application that the feature should be activated on
- Click the Web Application tab in the management Ribbon
- Click the Manage Features button in the management Ribbon
- Click either the feature’s Activate or Deactivate button
- To deactivate the feature, confirm the deactivation

Activating and Deactivation Features in Site Collection

If a feature has been installed to the farm and scoped to a site collection, a site collection administrator can then either activate or deactivate the feature. To activate or deactivate a site collection–scoped feature, do the following:
- Open the appropriate site collection in the browser
- From the Site Actions drop-down menu, click Site Settings
- Click the Site Collection Features hyperlink in the Site Collection Administration group,If the Site Collection Administration group contains a Go To Top Level Site Settings hyperlink, click on it to go to the top-level site, and then click the Site Collection Features hyper-link.
- Click the Activate or Deactivate button
- To deactivate a feature, confirm the deactivation

Activating and Deactivation Features in a Site

If a feature has been installed to the farm and scoped to a site, a site owner can activate and deactivate the feature. To activate or deactivate a site-scoped feature, do the following:
- Open the site in the browser.
- From the Site Actions drop-down menu, click Site Settings
- Click the Manage Site Features hyperlink in the Site Actions group
- Click the Activate or Deactivate button
- Confirm the deactivation

Activating and Deactivation Features using STSADM.EXE

Features can also be activated and deactivated from the command line using Stsadm.exe. Activate or deactivate features using the appropriate stsadm.exe command:

stsadm.exe -o activatefeature {-filename | -name | -id } [-url ] [-force]|

Or

stsadm.exe -o deactivatefeature {-filename | -name | -id } [-url ] [-force]

Activating and Deactivation Features using Windows PowerShell

Windows PowerShell uses a slightly different naming system than Stsadm.exe and
the user interface. Instead of using the activate and deactivate parameters, Windows PowerShell use the verbs Enable and Disable. To activate (enable) or deactivate(disable) features with Windows PowerShell, use the appropriate cmdlet:

Enable-SPFeature -Identity  [-AssignmentCollection ][-Confirm []][-Force ] [-PassThru ] [-Url ][-WhatIf []] []

Or

Disable-SPFeature -Identity [-AssignmentCollection ][-Confirm []][-Force ] [-Url ] [-WhatIf []][]

Planning of backup & restore process becomes very critical when you are handling the large content volume in SharePoint 2010 due to some of the limitations of the content backup and performance issues. Let's say you have the terabytes of data in your SharePoint 2010 Farm and you create the backup/restore policy.

The following things are important to consider:
- Farm backup and recovery using Central Administration or stsadm/powershell command processes 600GB of data for 6 hours
- SQL Server backup processes 600GB of data for 6 hours
- System Center Data Protection Manager processes terabytes of data for 6 hours
- SQL FILESTREAM provider does not support SQL Server snapshots backupRemote Blob Storage (RBS) should be installed on source and destination backup servers
- Use "Backup Compression" feature of SQL Server 2008 R2 that increases the performance
- Web application and service application settings are not included in a configuration backup, so backup/restore them manually
- Workflows are not included into export sites or lists
- It's not recommend to backup SharePoint Server 2010 site collection that are larger than 85 GB
- Restore process using Central Administration will not automatically start all of the service applications
- SharePoint Server 2010 backup backs up the Business Data Connectivity service external content type definitions but does not back up the data source itself
- The search index is not stored in SQL Server. If you use SQL Server tools to back up and restore search, you must perform a full crawl after you restore the content database.
- SharePoint Server 2010 allows to backup and restore the Farm Configuration settings, however neither SQL Server nor Data Protection Manager are able to do it


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You may have dismissed SharePoint 2007 as the web content management system for your internet presence, but with the update to SharePoint 2010, and its improvements to web content management, maybe it's time to reconsider?

The growth of SharePoint within organizations is well documented. However many organizations have been apprehensive in adopting SharePoint as a Web Content Management system for their public internet presence due to the difficulty in customizing SharePoint Server 2007 effectively

With the release of SharePoint 2010 Microsoft has made a concerted effort to position SharePoint as a leader in the WCM space, prompting organizations that already have deployed SharePoint in an Intranet or Extranet environment to consider the feasibility of adopting the platform. Although many of the technical improvements have already been discussed in various articles the question that most organizations are now considering is if it is worth moving from their established WCM platform to SharePoint. The recent release of the Gartner WCM Magic Quadrant for 2010 has shown that the new version of SharePoint has improved its capabilities in this area.

In this article We try to provide some guidance into some of the advantages, disadvantages and various questions that organizations should be considering when contemplating this move to SharePoint 2010


Technology Rationalization

It is the dream of every CIO and administrator to reduce the amount of systems that an organization possess and standardize on a platform that will be robust, scalable and ultimately support business goals. If an organization has made a considerable investment internally on the SharePoint platform, most commonly through an Intranet/Extranet/Collaboration presence, then having a completely separate platform for an Internet presence can be a huge hindrance

By standardizing on SharePoint for all types of Web management there are huge savings that can occur. Savings in hardware, licensing and operational costs can amount to huge sums to an organization. The ability to only have one platform to develop customizations on, one governance model or one common set of skills needed for employees is a very attractive proposition

If this course of action does occur however, an organization should make sure that firstly SharePoint will fulfill their requirements for a WCM platform. Also if rationalization does occur it could be a considerable amount of time before cost savings are realized. Training staff in a new technology, the cost of transferring from one platform to another or simple change management activities can be sizeable for an organization and should be considered before moving to SharePoint 2010

Platform Capabilities

With the broadness of the feature set in SharePoint 2010, being able to leverage this in an internet scenario is highly palatable and advantageous

Not only can the considerable WCM capabilities of SharePoint be leveraged but other important feature sets can also be utilized. The social toolset can be used to create public internet sites that can make use of SharePoint’s considerable tagging, ratings, blogs, wiki and other social engagement features. The search capabilities can be leveraged to create compelling search experiences. Business Intelligence for real time reporting can be combined with rich online InfoPath forms capabilities to create more consumer driven sites

Other features such as Claims based authentication can be leveraged to allow users to authenticate using a third party provider. Microsoft’s heavy investment into cloud computing also lends itself extremely well in a WCM scenario where potential traffic spikes can be absorbed by the cloud infrastructure

Of course the breadth of SharePoint’s capabilities can also serve as its downfall. If your organization has specific needs that need deep vertical capabilities than you should be considering the cost of implementing this custom functionality on the SharePoint platform. If this is the case then you might be better served with a niche solution, rather than the broader set of features that SharePoint offers

User Rationalization

From an end user perspective there are huge advantages of having one platform for daily activities. The time wasted performing the mental switch from one interface to another is well documented. The reduction of training costs is another advantage of having one platform for interaction. User engagement can also be increased with users feeling confident in being able to contribute content across all possible areas of an organization

In essence users hate and resent having many differing interfaces to generate the same output. It simply doesn’t make sense that authoring a news article on the Intranet is different than authoring one on the Internet for many users. Presenting users with one interface, one set of actions, one set of guiding principles can lead to huge efficiency gains across an organization

Licensing Changes

The new licensing model that Microsoft is now providing for public facing SharePoint sites is much more palatable then it was for SharePoint 2007. In the days of MOSS, the public connector license necessary to expose SharePoint to an anonymous audience was cost prohibitive for many smaller and mid-tier organizations to adopt

This has changed considerably in SharePoint 2010 with the new licensing model that Microsoft has provided. With the various flavors that are available, and the ability to use FAST search in these licenses, it makes for a very attractive proposition cost wise for many clients. Although licensing is still as complex as ever, We would dare say more complex now, at least mid-tier organizations can expose SharePoint out to the world without a huge price tag

Partner Ecosystem

It’s also worth noting that because SharePoint is a Microsoft product that the potential to find resources, training, add-ons and partners to assist an organization in meeting their business objectives in an Internet scenario is increased

The common issue of finding suitably experienced and expert staff in a particular technology can be somewhat alleviated by standardizing on a single platform, with the backing of the huge partner ecosystem that revolves around Microsoft. We expect partners to become even more engaged with SharePoint work in the near future as the demand grows. With the growth in the public web facing presence, Microsoft partners could specialize on this skillset and find themselves in a great position for the future. Of course this would have the added advantage to providing skills necessary for organizations as well

Final Thoughts

We hope that this article does provide some information that should be considered for implementing SharePoint 2010 as your web content management system. As with any product, careful planning and tradeoffs should be considered before making any major platform changes in your organization. However we believe that the ability to standardize on a single platform, a common architecture, governance model and training and user experience can be extremely powerful to an organization. Make sure that you spend a considerable amount of time researching the pros and cons of any such move

In this tutorial, we will show how to develop Provider and Consumer web parts and connect them through an Interface.

The result will be the ability to have two web parts on a SharePoint 2010 page and filter the contents of the consumer web part on the data from the provider web part. This is almost like a master - detail view.

You can view the same functionality by looking at the standard SharePoint web parts. Modify a web part --> select Connections and the "Provide data to..." or "Receive data from..."



and then...



Lets Go:
We will show the detailed steps to:
1 - Develop a Connection Interface
2 - Develop a simple provider web part.
3 - Develop a simple consumer web part.
1 - Develop a Connection Interface.

Open Visual Studio 2010 and create a new project. In the New Project dialog window, select Visual C# --> SharePoint 2010 --> Empty SharePoint Project.
Provide a descriptive name and click on OK.
Select to deploy the solution as a "Deploy as Farm Solution" and click on Finish.
Wait for the solution to be created in Visual Studio.

Now we will create the web part connection interface which is responsible for exchanging connection information between a provider and consumer web part.
In the Solution Explorer, right-click on your project and select "Add --> New item".
In the Add New Item dialog window, select Visual C# --> Code --> Interface.
Enter ITaskin the Name textbox and click the Add button.
Open ITask.cs in code view and change the visibility of the interface to Public and add the following code inside the interface:
namespace WebPartConnectors
{
   public interface ITask
   {
      int Id { get; }
      string Name { get; }
   }
}

2 - Develop a simple provider web part:
In the Solution Explorer, right click on your project and select Add --> New Item…
Select Visual C# --> SharePoint 2010 Web Part.
Enter ProviderWebPart in the Name textbox and click Add.
Open ProviderWebPart.cs in code view and in the ProviderWebPart class declaration, implement IProject.
public class ProviderWebPart : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart, ITask

Insert the following code after the ProviderWebPart class declaration.
This code block implements the IProject web part connection interface and adds a local variable to the web part.
DropDownList _objPicker = null;
int ITask.Id
 {
    get
    {
     return int.Parse(_objPicker.SelectedValue);
    }
 }
string ITask.Name
 {
   get
   {
     return _objPicker .SelectedItem.ToString();
   }
 }

Update the CreateChildControls method to contain the following code:

protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
  try
  {
    _objPicker= new DropDownList();
    using (SPSite spSite = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Web.Url))
    using (SPWeb spWeb = spSite.OpenWeb())
    {
      SPList objList = spWeb.Lists["Tasks"];

      foreach (SPListItem objListItem in objList.Items)
      {
        _objPicker.Items.Add(new ListItem(objListItem.Title, objListItem.ID.ToString()));
      }    
     }
     _objPicker.AutoPostBack = true;
     this.Controls.Add(_objPicker);
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {  
    this.Controls.Clear();
    this.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(ex.Message));
  }
}

Insert the following ConnectionProvider property below the CreateChildControls method. This provides the Connection Provider interface point for the ProviderWebPart: [ConnectionProvider("Task Name and ID")]
public ITask NameDoesNotMatter()
{
  return this;
}


Save your solution and build. Ensure that there are no build errors before you proceed.


3 - Develop a simple consumer web part.
In the Solution Explorer, right click on your project and select Add --> New Item…

Select Visual C# --> SharePoint 2010 Web Part.
Enter ConsumerWebPart in the Name textbox and click Add.

Insert the following code inside the ConsumerWebPart class declaration:
ITask _provider = null;
Label _lbl = null;

Update the CreateChildControls method to contain the following code:
protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
try
{
_lbl = new Label();
if (_provider != null)
{
if (_provider.Id > 0)
{
_lbl.Text = _provider.Name + " was selected.";
}
else
{
_lbl.Text = "Nothing was selected.";
}
}
else
{
_lbl.Text = "No Provider Web Part Connected.";
}
this.Controls.Add(_lbl);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
this.Controls.Clear();
this.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(ex.Message));
}
}

Insert the following ConnectionConsumer property below the CreateChildControls method. This provides the Connection Consumer interface point for the ConsumerWebPart:
[ConnectionConsumer("Name and ID")]Edit a page and add the two new web parts.
public void ThisNameDoesNotMatter(IProject providerInterface)
{
  _provider = providerInterface;
}
Save the solution, Build the solution and Deploy the solution.
Go to your target SharePoint 2010 site and refresh the site.



View your two new web parts on the page:



Edit the page again and select the ProviderWebPart and click on Edit Web Part.



Select the ProviderWebPart again, but this time select "Connections" --> "Send Task Name and ID To" --> ConsumerWebPart.



Now, if you select an item from the dropdown list control in the providerwebpart you will see the corresponding data change in the consumerwebpart.

This way you will be able to build master-detail views or web part filters based on selections of other web parts

A Data Connection Library in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is a library that can contain two kinds of data connections: an Office Data Connection (ODC) file or a Universal Data Connection (UDC) file. Microsoft InfoPath 2010 uses data connections that comply with the Universal Data Connection (UDC) file schema and typically have either a *.udcx or *.xml file name extension. Data sources described by these data connections are stored on the server and can be used in standard form templates and browser-enabled form templates.

How to create a SharePoint Server Data Connection Library?

1. Browse to a SharePoint Server 2010 site on which you have at least Design permissions. If you are on the root site, create a new site before you continue with the next step.

2. On the Site Actions menu, click More Options.

3. On the Create page, click Library under Filter By, and then click Data Connection Library.

4. On the right side of the Create page, type a name for the library, and then click the Create button.

5. Copy the URL of the new data connection library.

How to create a new data connection file in InfoPath?

1. Open InfoPath Designer 2010, click Blank Form, and then click Design Form.

2. On the Data tab, click Data Connections, and then click Add.

3. In the Data Connection Wizard, click Create a new connection to, click Receive data, and then click Next.

4. Click the kind of data source that you are connecting to, such as Database, Web service, or SharePoint library or list, and then click Next.

5. Complete the remaining steps in the Data Connection Wizard to configure your data connection, and then click Finish to return to the Data Connections dialog box.

6. In the Data Connections dialog box, click Convert to Connection File.

7. In the Convert Data Connection dialog box, enter the URL of the data connection library that you previously copied (delete "Forms/AllItems.aspx" and anything following it from the URL), enter a name for the data connection file at the end of the URL, and then click OK. It will take a few moments to convert and save the data connection file to the library.

8. Confirm that the data connection was converted successfully by examining the Details section of the Data Connections dialog box while the name of the converted data connection is selected.

9. Browse to the SharePoint data connection library, click the drop-down next to the name of the data connection, click Approve/Reject, click Approved, and then click OK.

Today when duplicity problem has increased a lot, authentication has become a must. Authentication is the process of determining if someone is who they claim to be. It answers the question "Who is this guy really?" Taking advantage of SharePoint Server 2010 Claims Based Authentication feature may help you curb this duplicity issue. Even if you are a SharePoint Foundation 2010 user, you can enjoy the same feature to authenticate the user identity.

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Most enterprise applications need some basic user security features. At a minimum, they need to authenticate their users, and many also need to authorize access to certain features so that only privileged users can get to them. Some apps must go further and audit what the user does. On Windows Azure, these features are built into the operating system and are usually quite easy to integrate into an application. By taking advantage of Windows integrated authentication, you don't have to invent your own authentication protocol or manage a user database. By using access control lists (ACLs), impersonation, and features such as groups, you can implement authorization with very little code. Indeed, this advice applies no matter which OS you are using. It's almost always a better idea to integrate closely with the security features in your OS rather than reinventing those features yourself.

In the real world, we face the following challenges:
* Privacy regulations and other pieces of legislation are impacting what kind of information we are allowed to capture and store about users, so in some cases we can't just demand that people give us all of their personal details.
* Businesses want to interoperate with other businesses, and government organizations want to provide more integrated services to citizens. However, different systems use different authentication systems and businesses want to integrate in a secure, legally compliant manner.
Consequently, claims based authentication in SharePoint Server is designed to address the two challenges mentioned above. Claims based authentication addresses privacy and other compliance concerns by requesting less specific, less personal information about people, and by trusting other parties or systems to do the "proof of identity" check. Claims based authentication addresses integration of different systems by allowing communications using open standards, and by providing a platform for developing more specialized 'identity connectors' between systems.

How to implement Claims based authentication?

The claims-based authentication is implemented in the following way:
* From a developer's point of view, the platform that Microsoft is providing is called the Windows Identity Foundation. Earlier, it was called the Geneva framework. It provides a programming library suitable for building claims-aware applications. This library is also used by SharePoint 2010
* Active Directory Federation Services implement services to create, accept, and transform tokens that contain claims.
* Cardspace provides a user interface for users to select which "identity card" they wish to use for a particular system
Claims based authentication won't address the lifecycle management of identity information.
Claims based authentication may let our system know that a user is a contractor from a partner company, but it alone won't let us specify a rule that says "all of my company's financial spreadsheets must not be seen by contractors". Not only does claims based authentication not provide this capability, but neither do the role-based access controls provided by SharePoint. In fact SharePoint's role-based access control model itself is too limited to address this. It still needs substantial improvements.
Claims based authentication feature was not available in MOSS 2007; SharePoint Server 2007 uses a native Active Directory-based authentication between machines and systems. In addition to claims based authentication, take advantage of other exclusive features in SharePoint Server 2010 and also enjoy some free SharePoint templates or web parts that come with SharePoint products.