To read the first part, click here.

Introduction

The SharePoint world is rapidly moving into the Cloud with SharePoint Online and Office 365, but some organizations are still not ready to move completely to Office 365 and SharePoint Online.

Upgrading to SharePoint 2016 or SharePoint 2019 that have support for hybrid scenarios can be a valid solution.

This post is based on upgrading a SharePoint 2010 farm into SharePoint 2016 using the database attach approach but should also be valid if you want to upgrade to SharePoint 2019. This post assumes that the we will only migrate the content database(s) from the source SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 and all other SharePoint databases are created in the target SharePoint 2016 farm during its installation process.

If you want to learn more about how to install a SharePoint 2016 farm in an automated way using PowerShell, click here and here.

There is another valid migration approach to migrate from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 by using content migration. In this approach, the upgrade is not based in a database upgrade process but on content migration and typically a 3rd party solution is necessary to do the content migration. A few 3rd party solutions that can do the job are ShareGate, AvePoint and Metalogix.

Upgrading a SharePoint farm using the database attach approach can be a complex task and the upgrade process is composed by a series of steps:

• Migrating Custom Developed Solutions from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 (outside of the scope of this post)
• Upgrade to a temporary SharePoint 2013 farm
• Upgrade to the target SharePoint 2016 farm

IMPORTANT NOTE: In a typical upgrade process, the below steps should be performed twice if there are custom developed solutions:

• The first time, to test the migration process and allow custom developed solutions to be properly migrated and tested by the end users
• The second time, to perform the final migration, after all custom developed solutions are migrated and tested by the end users

This post will cover:

• Upgrade to the target SharePoint 2016 farm

Upgrade to the target SharePoint 2016 farm

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Migrating from SharePoint 2010 directly to SharePoint 2016 is not supported. To migrate from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 we must first migrate to a temporary SharePoint 2013 farm and then migrate to SharePoint 2016
• To to be able to migrate to SharePoint 2016, the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm must at least have the March 2013 Public Update installed. For more details, click here

The migration is performed using the database attach upgrade method (the only supported method to upgrade from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 using a database upgrade approach).

In the upgrade process, for both the temporary SharePoint 2013 and the target SharePoint 2016 farms, you should create an empty web application so that a valid SharePoint content database is created. To learn more on how to install a SharePoint 2016 farm (process also valid for SharePoint 2013), click here and here.

After having all custom developed solutions migrated to SharePoint 2016 (if there are any), you should follow the following steps:

• SharePoint 2013: Go to “Manage content databases” in Central Administration, select the web application and then the option “Remove content database”. This will make the web application unattached from any web application in the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm

• SharePoint 2013 Database Server (final migration only): Place the database in read-write mode so that users will be able to change content in the target SharePoint 2016 farm. This can be achieved by the following T-SQL command: ALTER DATABASE <CONTENT_DB_NAME> SET read_write
• SharePoint 2013 Database Server: Backup of the content database(s)

• SharePoint 2013 (final migration only): Go to “Manage content databases” in Central Administration, select the web application, then the option “Add content database” and finally select the name of the content database previously removed. This will make the web application available again in the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm

• SharePoint 2016 Database Server: Copy the database backup file from the temporary SharePoint 2013 database server to the database server that supports the target SharePoint 2016 farm
• SharePoint 2016:  Go to “Manage content databases” in Central Administration, select the web application where you want to migrate to and then the option “Remove content database”. This will make the database unattached from any web application.

• SharePoint 2016 Database Server: Restore the content database backup from the temporary SharePoint 2013 database server. The restore must replace the content database that was created during the SharePoint 2016 installation.

• SharePoint 2016:  If you have custom developed farm solutions, deploy all the migrated WSPs in the target SharePoint 2016 farm.
• SharePoint 2016  Execute the first of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the SharePoint 2016 farm (in this example the web application URL is http://sp2016): Test-SPContentDatabase -Name <Content_DB_Name> -WebApplication http://sp2016
  
  • This PowerShell cmdlet will test the content database against the web application to verify if all customizations referenced within the content database are also installed in the farm
  • In my case, I got some missing features errors but none of them are upgrade blocking

• SharePoint 2016:  Execute the second of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the SharePoint 2016 farm: Mount-SPContentDatabase -Name “<Content_DB_Name>” -DatabaseServer “<DBAlias>” -WebApplication “http://sp2016”
  • This PowerShell cmdlet attaches an existing content database to a web application
  • In my case, no errors or warnings were shown

• SharePoint 2016:  Execute the third of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the SharePoint 2016 farm: Test-SPSite http://sp2016
  • This PowerShell cmdlet runs a series of health checks on the site collection and its contents
  • In my case, I got a warning but once again nothing that is upgrade blocking

• SharePoint 2016:  Execute the fourth of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the SharePoint 2016 farm: Repair-SPSite -identity http://sp2016
  • This PowerShell cmdlet is similar to the Test-SPSite cmdlet but fixes any issues that it finds
  • The result was identical to the Test-SPSite cmdlet: no upgrading blocking issues were found

• SharePoint 2016:  Execute the fifth of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the SharePoint 2016 farm: Upgrade-SPSite http://sp2016 -VersionUpgrade
  • This PowerShell cmdlet will upgrade the site collections associated to the web application to SharePoint 2016 mode. Before this cmdlet was executed, the site collections were still in SharePoint 2013 mode.

After the migration is complete, your SharePoint web application is successfully displayed in your brand new SharePoint 2016 environment!

To read the first part of this two part step by step tutorial, click here.

Related Articles

If you want to convert your tenant’s root classic site into a modern SharePoint site, click here.

To learn why your business should migrate to SharePoint Online and Office 365, click here and here.

If you are a SharePoint administrator or a SharePoint developer who wants to learn more about how to install a SharePoint 2019 farm in an automated way using PowerShell, I invite you to click here and here.

If you want to learn how to upgrade a SharePoint 2013 farm to SharePoint 2019, click here and here.

If you want to learn all the steps and precautions necessary to successfully keep your SharePoint farm updated and be ready to start your move to the cloud, click here.

If you learn how to greatly speed up your SharePoint farm update process to ensure your SharePoint farm keeps updated and you stay one step closer to start your move to the cloud, click here.

If SharePoint 2019 is still not an option, you can learn more about how to install a SharePoint 2016 farm in an automated way using PowerShell, click here and here.

If you are new to SharePoint and Office 365 and want to learn all about it, take a look at these learning resources.

If you are work in a large organization who is using Office 365 or thinking to move to Office 365 and is considering between a single or multiple Office 365 tenants, I invite you to read this article.

If you want to know all about the latest SharePoint and Office 365 announcements from SharePoint Conference 2019, click here and here.

If your organization is still not ready to go all in to SharePoint Online and Office 365, a hybrid scenario may be the best choice. SharePoint 2019 RTM was recently announced and if you to learn all about SharePoint 2019 and all its features, click here.

Happy SharePointing!

The post How to upgrade from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 Step by Step (Part 2) appeared first on Blog IT.

To read the second part, click here.

Introduction

The SharePoint world is rapidly moving into the Cloud with SharePoint Online and Office 365, but some organizations are still not ready to move completely to Office 365 and SharePoint Online.

Upgrading to SharePoint 2016 or SharePoint 2019 that have support for hybrid scenarios can be a valid solution.

This post is based on upgrading a SharePoint 2010 farm into SharePoint 2016 using the database attach approach but should also be valid if you want to upgrade to SharePoint 2019. This post assumes that the we will only migrate the content database(s) from the source SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 and all other SharePoint databases are created in the target SharePoint 2016 farm during its installation process.

If you want to learn more about how to install a SharePoint 2016 farm in an automated way using PowerShell, click here and here.

There is another valid migration approach to migrate from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 by using a content migration. In this approach, the upgrade is not based in a database upgrade process but on content migration and typically a 3rd party solution is necessary to do the content migration. A few 3rd party solutions that can do the job are ShareGate, AvePoint and Metalogix.

Upgrading a SharePoint farm using the database attach approach can be a complex task and the upgrade process is composed by a series of steps:

• Migrating Custom Developed Solutions from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 (outside of the scope of this post)
• Upgrade to a temporary SharePoint 2013 farm
• Upgrade to the target SharePoint 2016 farm

IMPORTANT NOTE: In a typical upgrade process, the below steps should be performed twice if there are custom developed solutions:

• The first time, to test the migration process and allow custom developed solutions to be properly migrated and tested by the end users
• The second time, to perform the final migration, after all custom developed solutions are migrated and tested by the end users

This post will cover:

• Migrating Custom Developed Solutions from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016
  (details about the migration of custom solutions are outside of the scope of this post)
• Upgrade to a temporary SharePoint 2013 farm

Migrating Custom Developed Solutions from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016

This step is outside the scope of this post but a few notes are important to mention if you have custom developed solutions that you want to migrate from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016:

• First, you should analyze the source SharePoint 2010 farm and look for custom developed solutions and in particular for farm solutions and/or sandboxed solutions
• If custom developed solutions are found and if you want to take the easiest migration path, you could simply upgrade your custom developed solutions to SharePoint 2016 without changing the architecture. This typically involves migrating server-side code from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016, possible migration of master pages and adjustments to CSS and JS files
• Despite more difficult, if possible, you should consider migrating the existing solutions to one of the following development models:
  • SharePoint Framework: the latest and the recommended development model for modern SharePoint solutions, enabling an easier migration path to SharePoint Online and Office 365
  • SharePoint Add-Ins: this development model is still supported and can be a valid solution depending on your scenario. However, when possible. you should consider migrating solutions to the SharePoint Framework development model

Upgrade into a temporary SharePoint 2013 farm

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Migrating from SharePoint 2010 directly to SharePoint 2016 is not supported. To migrate from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 we must first migrate to a temporary SharePoint 2013 farm and then migrate to SharePoint 2016
• To to be able to migrate to SharePoint 2016, the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm must at least have the March 2013 Public Update installed. For more details, click here

The migration is performed using the database attach upgrade method (the only supported method to upgrade from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 using a database upgrade approach).

In the upgrade process, for both the temporary SharePoint 2013 and the target SharePoint 2016 farms, you should create an empty web application so that a valid SharePoint content database is created. To learn more on how to install a SharePoint 2016 farm (process also valid for SharePoint 2013), click here and here.

After having all custom developed solutions migrated to SharePoint 2016 (if there are any), you should follow the following steps:

• SharePoint 2010 (test migration only): Export all WSPs from the SharePoint 2010 farm to file system. To export the WSP files, you can use this PowerShell script.
  SharePoint 2010 (final migration only): Go to “Manage content databases” in Central Administration, select the web application and then the option “Remove content database”. This will temporarily make the web application unavailable in the source SharePoint 2010 farm

• SharePoint 2010 Database Server (final migration only): Place the database in read-only mode to ensure the source web application is made available again and so that users cannot change content anymore during the upgrade process. This can be achieved by the following T-SQL command: ALTER DATABASE <CONTENT_DB_NAME> SET read_only
• SharePoint 2010 Database Server: Backup of the content database(s) (in read-only mode in the final migration)

• SharePoint 2010 (final migration only): Go to “Manage content databases” in Central Administration, select the web application, then the option “Add content database” and finally select the name of the content database previously removed. This will make the web application available again in the source SharePoint 2010 farm in read-only mode, preventing users from changing any content

• SharePoint 2013 Database Server: Copy the database backup file from the source SharePoint 2010 database server to the database server that supports the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm
• SharePoint 2013:  Go to “Manage content databases” in Central Administration, select the web application where you want to migrate to and then the option “Remove content database”. This will make the database unattached from any web application.

• SharePoint 2013 Database Server: Restore the content database backup from the source SharePoint 2010 database server. The restore must replace the content database that was created during the SharePoint 2013 installation.

• SharePoint 2013:  If you have custom developed farm solutions, add all the exported WSPs (without deploying them) in the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm. For each WSP, run the following command:
  • Add-SPSolution -LiteralPath $location\solution.wsp where $location is the file system location of the WSP files
• SharePoint 2013:  Execute the first of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm (in this example the web application URL is http://sp2013): Test-SPContentDatabase -Name <Content_DB_Name> -WebApplication http://sp2013
  
  • This PowerShell cmdlet will test the content database against the web application to verify if all customizations referenced within the content database are also installed in the farm
  • In my case, I got some missing features errors but none of them are upgrade blocking

• SharePoint 2013:  Execute the second of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm: Mount-SPContentDatabase -Name “<Content_DB_Name>” -DatabaseServer “<DBAlias>” -WebApplication “http://sp2013”
  • This PowerShell cmdlet attaches an existing content database to a web application
  • In my case, I got an error that once again was not upgrade blocking. This cmdlet is very likely to throw an error but most times it is an error that will not block the upgrade process

• SharePoint 2013:  Execute the third of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm: Test-SPSite http://sp2013
  • This PowerShell cmdlet runs a series of health checks on the site collection and its contents
  • In my case, I got a warning but once again nothing that is upgrade blocking

• SharePoint 2013:  Execute the fourth of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm: Repair-SPSite -identity http://sp2013
  • This PowerShell cmdlet is similar to the Test-SPSite cmdlet but fixes any issues that it finds
  • The result was identical to the Test-SPSite cmdlet: no upgrading blocking issues were found

• SharePoint 2013:  Execute the fifth of a series of PowerShell commands to associate the restored content database to the temporary SharePoint 2013 farm: Upgrade-SPSite http://sp2013 -VersionUpgrade
  • This PowerShell cmdlet will upgrade the site collections associated to the web application to SharePoint 2013 mode. Before this cmdlet was executed, the site collections were still in SharePoint 2010 mode.

To read the second part of this two part step by step tutorial, click here.

Related Articles

If you want to convert your tenant’s root classic site into a modern SharePoint site, click here.

To learn why your business should migrate to SharePoint Online and Office 365, click here and here.

If you are a SharePoint administrator or a SharePoint developer who wants to learn more about how to install a SharePoint 2019 farm in an automated way using PowerShell, I invite you to click here and here.

If you want to learn how to upgrade a SharePoint 2013 farm to SharePoint 2019, click here and here.

If you want to learn all the steps and precautions necessary to successfully keep your SharePoint farm updated and be ready to start your move to the cloud, click here.

If you learn how to greatly speed up your SharePoint farm update process to ensure your SharePoint farm keeps updated and you stay one step closer to start your move to the cloud, click here.

If SharePoint 2019 is still not an option, you can learn more about how to install a SharePoint 2016 farm in an automated way using PowerShell, here and here.

If you are new to SharePoint and Office 365 and want to learn all about it, take a look at these learning resources.

If you are work in a large organization who is using Office 365 or thinking to move to Office 365 and is considering between a single or multiple Office 365 tenants, I invite you to read this article.

If you want to know all about the latest SharePoint and Office 365 announcements from SharePoint Conference 2019, click here and here.

If your organization is still not ready to go all in to SharePoint Online and Office 365, a hybrid scenario may be the best choice. SharePoint 2019 RTM was recently announced and if you to learn all about SharePoint 2019 and all its features, click here.

Happy SharePointing!

The post How to upgrade from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2016 Step by Step (Part 1) appeared first on Blog IT.

When using FS4SP in a production environment, you need a separate farm just for FAST. That is, you need a set of servers where you install FS4SP and then you connect that FAST farm to a SharePoint farm, by means of two Search Service Applications. These FAST servers don’t have SharePoint installed on them and they have their own PowerShell snap-in that allows you to perform a whole bunch of administration tasks on FS4SP.

Suppose you want to query your search index, for testing or maintenance purposes, in PowerShell. The easiest solution would be to open your SharePoint 2010 Administration PowerShell console, and use the Server Side Object Model to create a new KeywordQuery object and invoke the Execute method on it. You can find many blog posts that teach how to do this. Here’s one example. If, for some reason, you need to run that PowerShell script from one of the FAST servers it won’t work because these servers don’t have SharePoint installed and are not part of the SharePoint farm, hence you can’t use the Server Object Model.

In this case, you’ll need to use the search web service, which can be called from any server as long as it can communicate with the SharePoint farm. The script below shows how you can do this.

$WebApplicationURL = "http://myserver:9999"
$SearchServiceURL = "/_vti_bin/search.asmx"

# process the results
if ($results -ne $null -And $results.Tables["RelevantResults"] -ne $null)
{
    # check the result count (this page) and the total result count (all pages)
    $resultCount = $results.Tables["RelevantResults"].Rows.Count
    $totalCount = $results.Tables["RelevantResults"].ExtendedProperties["TotalRows"]
    Write-Host "Retrieved $resultCount (from a total of $totalCount) results."
   
    # write the title of each result in the console window
    foreach ($row in $results.Tables["RelevantResults"].Rows)
    {
        Write-Host $row["Title"]
     }
}

The post Querying SharePoint Search from PowerShell appeared first on Blog IT.

According to FAST Search’s TechNet documentation, you can use the Set-FASTSearchMetadataManagedProperty cmdlet to configure the main settings of a managed property. Among other things, you can enable stemming for a specific managed property. Here’s how it’s done:

$title = Get-FASTSearchMetadataManagedProperty –Name title
Set-FASTSearchMetadataManagedProperty –ManagedProperty $title –StemmingEnabled $true

The problem is that this doesn’t work. The StemmingEnabled argument is actually ignored by the cmdlet so, we need to use a different approach. This is the right way:

$title = Get-FASTSearchMetadataManagedProperty –Name title
$title.StemmingEnabled = 1
$title.update()

Although Microsoft is yet to update TechNet’s documentation, it has published a support article in its knowledge base (KB2468430) which describes this very solution.

The post FAST Search Tip #1: Enabling Stemming in PowerShell appeared first on Blog IT.

So many months of hard team work to make the better for the Pestana Websites using SharePoint 2010 environment.

I’m a member of the fantastic team that work in this project and I want to congratulate everyone (my colleagues, my company, the client stakeholders, the design company).

For more information about this award:

http://sharepointeurope.com/content/award-winners-2012.aspx

Pestana Websites:

http://www.pestana.com

http://www.pousadas.pt

http://www.pestanapriority.com

The post |create|it| wins the Best Public Website award appeared first on Blog IT.

<Field

    ID="{538c71e4-8650-4ce7-b021-920effa66346}"

    Type="Choice"

    Name="Publishing_x0020_Status"

    StaticName="Publishing_x0020_Status"

    DisplayName="Publishing Status"

    Required="FALSE" 

    Format="Dropdown"

    FillInChoice="FALSE"

    Group="Custom Columns">

    <Default>Not Published</Default>

    <CHOICES>

       <CHOICE>

          Not Published

       </CHOICE>

       <CHOICE>

          Pending

       </CHOICE>

       <CHOICE>

          Published

       </CHOICE>

       <CHOICE>

          Error

       </CHOICE>

    </CHOICES>

</Field>

Although the XML is well formed and all the attributes and values are correct, this field definition has a problem. If you create a site column using this definition, here is what happens:

• If you check the site column configuration in SharePoint, everything will look fine
• If you add this site column to a list (either through a content type, or directly) and you edit an item using the default list forms, everything will work as expected.
• If you try to edit the list items using a DataSheet View, you won’t be able to select any value from this choice field and SharePoint will always throw a validation error.

The problem here are the invisible characters (spaces, newlines and tabs) between the <CHOICE> and </CHOICE> tags and their inner values. Apparently, when using list forms these characters are trimmed from the valid choices, but when using the datasheet view they are not, causing a strange behavior when editing an item in that view.

The correct definition for this field would be:

<Field

    ID="{538c71e4-8650-4ce7-b021-920effa66346}"

    Type="Choice"

    Name="Publishing_x0020_Status"

    StaticName="Publishing_x0020_Status"

    DisplayName="Publishing Status"

    Required="FALSE" 

    Format="Dropdown"

    FillInChoice="FALSE"

    Group="Custom Columns">

    <Default>Not Published</Default>

    <CHOICES>

       <CHOICE>Not Published</CHOICE>

       <CHOICE>Pending</CHOICE>

       <CHOICE>Published</CHOICE>

       <CHOICE>Error</CHOICE>

    </CHOICES>

</Field>

The post SharePoint Tip #27: Choice Columns and DataSheet Views appeared first on Blog IT.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <ContentType
    ID="0x0100C5647A362F236548B218C15302286758"
    Name="MyCT"
    Description="Simple Custom Content Type" 
    Inherits="TRUE"
    Overwrite="TRUE"
    Version="0">
    <Folder TargetName=”_cts/MyCT” />
    <FieldRefs>
      <FieldRef ID="{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}" Name="Title" />

      <!-- This is a comment –->   
      <FieldRef ID="{b402db15-ee44-4ec4-89e3-23e10a8fc64c}" Name="My_x0200_Field" />
      <FieldRef ID="{538c71e4-8650-4ce7-b021-920effa66346}" Name="Status" />
    </FieldRefs>
  </ContentType>
</Elements>

The Content Type feature element above will cause the Content Type to be created with only the Title field, which is inherited from the parent Content Type. All the fields referenced in this Content Type definition will be ignored.

The post SharePoint Tip #26: Comments in Content Type Definition appeared first on Blog IT.

• SharePoint Foundation 2010 SP1 – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26640
• SharePoint Foundation 2010 SP1 Language Pack – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26629
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 SP1 – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26623
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 SP1 Language Pack – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26621

You shoud also deploy the June 2011 CU Update – http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=2536599&kbln=en-us

And also the Server Pack 1 for Office 2010

• x64 – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26617
• x86 – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26622

The post Service Pack 1 for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 appeared first on Blog IT.

The abstract for this webinar is as follows:

Regarding data access, one of the new features introduced with SharePoint 2010 is the possibility to use LINQ to manipulate list items. However, despite being immensely useful, this technology has its own limitations. During this webinar André will talk about what you can and can't do with LINQ to SharePoint, as well as the scenarios where this technology should or should not be applied.

Although it is a free webinar, you must register to be able to attend.

The post Free Webinar: LINQ to SharePoint appeared first on Blog IT.

The three sessions are:

W18 – Using BCS to Integrate Azure Services with SharePoint 2010

W26 – Federated Authentication in SharePoint 2010

Th28 – SharePoint + Azure = Better Together

The post European SharePoint Conference 2011 appeared first on Blog IT.