Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Full Control user cannot edit web parts

Problem: A user with Full Control could not edit a Content Editor web part. She would click in the web part and she could not select or type anything as if it were locked. I verified that she had Full Control, not only at the document library but on the document itself (in this case it was a web part page)

Resolution: There are a couple of solutions for this, but the cause of the problem is a new setting in Sharepoint 2010 that allows us admins to restrict contributors from editing web parts. So you can do one of two things to fix this problem:
  1. Disable this setting I mention in Central Administration like this:
    - Go to Central Admin
    -select your web application that you want to make this change on (yes, this can only be done at the web application level which kind of sucks)
    -select 'Web Part Security'
    -scroll down to 'Scriptable Web Parts' and select 'Allows contributors to add or edit scriptable Web Parts'
    -click OK
  2. Or if you do not want to disable this setting, give the Full Control user 'Approve', 'Manage' and 'Designer' permissions, in ADDITION to 'Full Control'

You'll have to weight the lesser of two evils...receiving multiple phone calls about users not being able to edit web parts or receiving multiple calls about Contributors accidentally removing or modifying web parts that they should not be. I suggest a good training strategy for Contributor users before they are granted that right.

Docs opening in Read-Only

Problem: I'm not going to preface every post with 'this was weird' because almost every post would probably say that. But this one was weird and its not really a Sharepoint 2010 problem but I'll post it anyway. After upgrading from Sharepoint 2007 to 2010, a group of users (on Windows XP, Office 2007), even though they had 'Full Control' permission on the document library, their documents would open up in 'Read-Only' mode. Of course I asked them to check-out the doc, do a Microsoft Update, which actually solved the problem for all but one of the users. Below is how I solved her problem.

Resolution: Note: this solution involved a registry change to the user's laptop so be VERY CAREFUL!!!!
  • I opened up the registry settings with 'regedit'
  • locate the following area in the registry:
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\Microsoft\MasterAggregatorForIPP\OleDbHandlers{E1D2BF40-A96B-11d1-9C6B-0000F875AC61}
  • Delete 'Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion'
  • touch your left shoulder with your right hand and say 'good job'

List Does Not Exist Error

Problem: So this was a weird one, after we upgraded from 2007 to 2010, several users were running into the 'List does not exist' error when browsing to specific areas of their sites.

Solution: The 'Sharepoint Server Publishing Infrastructure' Site Collection feature had to be activated (see steps below)
  1. Site Actions >> Site Settings >> Site Collection Features
  2. Do a Find for 'Sharepoint Server Publishing Infrastructure' and Activate
  3. Tell the people whom you were having the problem that it took you 3 weeks to figure out and that you deserve a Belgian beer (recommend a Blonde for many reasons)

Allow me to introduce myself

Hello,

My name is Sal and I've been a Sharepoint Warrior first iteration in 2001. Back then, it was equivalent to going to battle with just a loin cloth and a spear. My oh my has it come a long way. Now, its more like, having a helmet, a sword, some armor and a firearm. We were one of the first companies to get on 2010 and I've been having a blast. I hope that since we were one of the early adopters, this blog will serve to help out my fellow Sharepoint Warriors!!!!

Here is a little publication with some of my input about Sharepoint 2010 and you can see a more of what we are doing and planning to do with Sharepoint 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000007074