Get SearchServiceApplication in PowerShell

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Stu

In C# when retrieving the default SearchServiceApplication object you might do something like the following, if you were trying to initiate a new Schema object, for example:

SPServiceContext serviceContext = SPServiceContext.GetContext(SPContext.Current.Site);
 
SearchServiceApplicationProxy searchApplicationProxy = serviceContext.GetDefaultProxy(typeof(SearchServiceApplicationProxy)) as SearchServiceApplicationProxy;
 
Guid applicationId = searchApplicationProxy.GetSearchServiceApplicationInfo().SearchServiceApplicationId;
 
SearchServiceApplication searchApplication = SearchService.Service.SearchApplications.GetValue<SearchServiceApplication>(applicationId);
 
Schema schema = new Schema(searchApplication);

If you’re looking to implement something similar in PowerShell, you don’t have to write quite as much code. Take a look at the following script, which achieves the same goal:

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint");
 
$searchApplication = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "Search Service Application"
 
$schema = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.Schema($searchApplication);

The call to Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication is all that’s required to retrieve the default SearchServiceApplication object.

Simples!

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Field Order for External Content Type

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Stu

Working with external content types isn’t as straight forward as it should be, especially within a Visual Studio project. Take trying to define the display order of your columns as an example.

You define your task entity by adding your required Type Descriptors in BDC Explorer. The order the columns will display in external views is dependant on the order they are listed in the BDC Explorer. That’s all well and good but there’s no way through the UI to change this order.

The easiest way to change the order is to directly edit the dbcm file in your favourite text editor, mine is Notepad++. Other text editors are available 🙂

In Visual Studio, right click your model in the Solution Explorer pane and click Open Folder in File Explorer. In the folder that loads, open the bdcm file in your editor of choice.
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Automate Metadata Property Creation

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Stu

Looking for an easy way of ensuring newly created site columns have a metadata property in the default search service application?

Luckily, there’s a setting for this, although it isn’t that easy to find, unless you know it’s there.

Before showing you how to enable this, it’s important to point out a couple of important requirements for this to work.

  • The site column you want a metadata property automatically created for must be used by an item\document and contain data in at least one instance. Failing to do this will mean the SharePoint indexer will not pick up the new column or add it to the crawled property list for the Search application.
  • The column must not have a crawled property defined for it, I’ll show you where you can check this next.

In your Central Administration site, navigate to the search service application’s management page.
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Show Web Template

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Stu

Carrying on from my previous post Hide Web Template, this post demonstrates how to show a web template in the New Site dialog for a specific web using a PowerShell script:

function Add-SPWebTemplate {
	[CmdletBinding()]
	param(
		[parameter(Position=1,Mandatory=$true)][Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb]$web
	)
	process {
		$templates = New-Object "System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection``1[[Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWebTemplate, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c]]"
		$availableWebTemplates = $web.GetAvailableWebTemplates(1033);
 
		$availableWebTemplates | ForEach-Object {
			if ($_.ID -eq 53) {
				Write-Host ("Blank Internet web template is already enabled for web '", $_.Title, "' at ", $_.Url -join "") -NoNewline
				return
			}
 
			$templates.add($_)
		}
 
		$web.AllowAllWebTemplates()
		$allWebTemplates = $web.GetAvailableWebTemplates(1033);
 
		$allWebTemplates | Where{ $_.ID -eq 53 } | ForEach-Object {
			$templates.add($_)
		}
 
		Write-Host ("Enabling Blank Internet web template for web '", $_.Title, "' at ", $_.Url -join "") -NoNewline
		$web.SetAvailableWebTemplates($templates, 1033);
		$web.Update()
		Write-Host " - Done." -ForegroundColor Green
	}
}
 
 
Get-SPWebApplication | ForEach-Object {
	$_.Sites | Where { $_.ServerRelativeUrl -ne '/sites/example' } | ForEach-Object {
		$_.AllWebs | ForEach-Object {
			Add-SPWebTemplate $_
		}
	}
}

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Debugging InfoPath Browser Form

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Stu

If you’re using custom code with your browser enabled InfoPath forms and would like to be able to debug them, follow the steps outlined below to configure the form to enable this.

Open the Visual Studio Tool for Applications(VSTA) editor with the code behind for your InfoPath form. In the solution explorer pane, right click your project and select Properties.

Switch to the Build tab and click the Advanced button:

Advanced Button
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