InfoPath forms getting information from Active Directory

I had a request where I had to develop an InfoPath form for a project and user wanted a people picker in that form. In SharePoint lists/libraries we can use a "Person and Group" column which gets info from AD and will display all names but to have the same functionality in InfoPath we have to follow few manual steps BUT the good news is this do not need any programming.

2007 ships with a control called Contact Selector Control that will resolve this issue!

Custom Site Template with Publishing feature enable in SharePoint 2007

I had a request to create a custom site template for reusability. As we always enable "Publishing Feature" for all team sites, I tried to save an existing site as template. But you know what, site with Publishing feature, does not provide an option to "save site as template".

Then I tried a trick to open save site as template page:

So just to make it clear.  If your subsite is
http://sites/toplevelsite/teamsite/default.aspx
You would go to :
http://sites/toplevelsite/teamsite/default.aspx/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx

Here you should be able to save site as template.BUT the problem was not solved. Doing this, when you try to create a new site from this template, it is not going to work. It will throw an error and your site is not created.

So to explain in one line, you have to save site templates without enabling "Publishing Feature" and then activate it manually after creating a site from this template.

Display list items from one site collection to other site collection

Recently I had a request to display Calendar events from one site collection to other site collection. This way users do not need to readd the same events in both site collections.
I accomplish this I was thinking of web part or a workflow which will solve the process. But there is also another way to share with you.
This can be done by using IFrames, Javascript.Thanks to Christophe I got this code help from
http://blog.pathtosharepoint.com/2009/01/22/a-simple-method-to-display-a-list-in-another-site/

Check this code

Playing with Notifications in Tasks lists

One of my user had a requirement in one of their sites. The requirement was, they have a Tasks list where tasks are assigned to members of that site.

 

First question was: How can a person get notified when a task is assigned to him/her ?

 

Answer : By default the notification is disabled. To enable it, follow these steps.

Step 1: Open Tasks list in that site.

step 2: Go to Settings (Next to Actions), List Settings.

Step 3: Click on "Advance Settings" link under "General Settings" section.

Step 4: In "E-Mail Notification " section, select "Yes" for "Send e-mail when ownership is assigned?". Leave all other default settings. Click Ok at the bottom of the page.

 

You are done. Whenever a new task is created and assigned to a person, that person will get notified.

 

Second Question: When a assigned person changes Task status from "In Progress" to "Completed", how can my boss gets notified ?

 

Answer:

Step 1: Open Tasks list in that site.

Step 2: Select Actions, Alert me.

Step 3: Type some Title in "Alert Title" section.

Step 4: In "Send Alerts To" section, type your name. To do this, click on small book icon to the right. This will display a dialog box, type your boss name and click OK. Select name and click Add. you will see your name with an underline.

Step 5: Leave default settings in "Change Type" section.

Step 6: In "Send Alerts for These Changes " section select "A task becomes complete".

Step 7: In "When to Send Alerts " section select "Send e-mail immediately" radio button. And Click Ok.

 

That's it. You are done. you will get notified when someone changes task status from "In Progress" to "Completed".

 

You can use the same logic or tweak it a little bit to fit your scenario.

Let me know if you have any questions.

How to increase width of SharePoint List Column

One of my user asked me how we can increase width of SharePoint List Column. SharePoint does not provide a direct way to increase the width of list column. Now again this is a customization.
But one way I could solve this problem is by using javascript.
Copy paste this code in between opening and closing script tags (
) a Content Editor web part and then change the name of the columns like Title, Department etc. Then you are done.

Meeting Workspace error: ‘g_InstanceID’ is undefined

After changing the master page on a Meeting Workspace site, the recurring meeting workspace hyperlinks under “Select a date from the list below” do not work and throw a JavaScript error.

If you create a custom master page and use it for your Meeting Workspaces, a JavaScript error is thrown.

Error:
‘g_InstanceID’ is undefined

Cause:
The g_instanceId global JavaScript variable is declared in a script registered runtime by the