Configure Outgoing E-Mail Settings for SharePoint 2010 / 2013 to using Office 365 or GMail Relay

Any SharePoint Client, User, or Developer need an SMTP server to send e-mails to Internal or External SharePoint site users from a Workflow, Alerts, Request Site Access, and/or Any custom Apps that use SharePoint Outgoing e-mail setting to send e-mails.

SharePoint cannot be configured to send e-mail over encrypted port to the e-mail service. And Office 365 and Gmail required an SMTP connection that supports TLS encryption .

Fortunately, Windows Server (2008-2012) supports an SMTP relay for Office 365 and Gmail by install a local SMTP Rely Server that supports an encrypted connection (over TCP Port 587) .

The Steps are easy and forward:

1. Install SMTP Role (Windows Server 2008 and 2012)
2. Configuring SMTP Service to Relying to Office365/Gmail SMTP
3. Testing the SMTP Service Connection
4. Configuring Outgoing E-Mail settings in SharePoint Servers
5. Test Sending an E-mail from SharePoint Site

The following is the detailed steps:

 

Step by Step: Install SQL server 2008 R2 for SharePoint 2010

This article contain detailed steps to install SQL server 2008 R2 with best practices and guidelines from Microsoft and other many blogs over the internet, and I try to put all these best practices and guidelines in one article with step by step installation guide.

Pre-Installation Steps

Before install SQL server 2008 R2, we need to check the pre-install requisites:

Operating Systems Requirements:

• Plan to install SQL on a NTFS file system
• Do no try to install SQL Server on a compressed, encrypted or read-only drive, because setup will block the installation
• Do not install SQL Server on a Domain Controller.
• Verify Windows Management Instrumentation service (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services) is running
• Configure your firewall to allow SQL Server access. Click here for more information about protocols and port numbers
• Create dedicated service account for each service to be installed. Ensure that these accounts are not member of Local Administrator because it will give unnecessary rights to these accounts, see SQL services accounts
• The user account that is running SQL Server Setup must have administrative privileges on the computer, see SQL services accounts
• Group all SQL services accounts in one AD Organization Unit for easy management and understandable hierarchy.
• At least 6.0 GB of disk space are required by SQL Server setup

Additional software requirements and hardware requirements:

• Enable .NET Framework 3.5.
• PowerShell 2.0.

Note: run Windows Updates to get latest updates after install and check all previous requirements.

 

Error: The Products Preparation Tool in SharePoint Server 2013 may not progress past “Configuring Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role”

When you try to install Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 on some Windows Server 2012 configurations, the Products Preparation Tool may be unable to correctly configure and install the required Windows Features for SharePoint. If this occurs, the tool will continuously try to configure and install the required features and then restart.

When this problem occurs, the Products Preparation Tool does not progress past the “Configuring Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role” stage.

To work around this issue, use one of the following methods in this article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2765260, in my case, i used Method 2 – offline method 

Also, please to note that: Currently, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 is not supported for installation on computers running the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system. SharePoint Server 2013 with Service Pack 1 and SharePoint Foundation 2013 with Service Pack 1 will offer support for Windows Server 2012 R2.

for more information about SharePoint support for Windows Server 2012 R2, read the following articles:

SharePoint 2013 Support for Windows Server 2012 R2

Microsoft Support: SharePoint 2013 support for Windows Server 2012 R2

I Hope this useful for you,
Thanks.

 

Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 – Part 5: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013

This is the Fifth and Final part for Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 Article,

Article Content’s Index:

1. Part 1: Overview and Prepare for a deployment of Project Server 2013
2. Part 2: Install and Configure Project Server 2013
3. Part 3: Configure Project Server 2013 Application Service
4. Part 4: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013
5. Part 5: Deploy Project Web App in an existing site collection – Project Server 2013

Deploy Project Web App in an existing site collection – Project Server 2013

For this post I create a Web Application with Top-Level Site collection. In Top-Level site, there is no link for PWA Setting in Site Action Menu. We want to enable PWA for this site collection

Deploying an instance of Project Web App to an existing site collection consists of the following:

1. Enable the Project Web App site collection features
2. Create a Project Web App site in an existing site collection

These steps will be created using PowerShell Script.

 

Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 – Part 4: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013

This is the Fourth part for Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 Article,

Article Content’s Index:

1. Part 1: Overview and Prepare for a deployment of Project Server 2013
2. Part 2: Install and Configure Project Server 2013
3. Part 3: Configure Project Server 2013 Application Service
4. Part 4: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013
5. Part 5: Deploy Project Web App in an existing site collection – Project Server 2013

Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection

In this part, we will deploy an instance of Project Web App along with a Project Web App site in a new site collection.

Not all steps in this post are required, such as create Web Application, and/or create Top-Level site collection, but I covered these steps in post for more usability and as a general reference.

 

Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 – Part 3: Configure Project Server 2013 Application Service

This is the Third part for Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 Article,

Article Content’s Index:

1. Part 1: Overview and Prepare for a deployment of Project Server 2013
2. Part 2: Install and Configure Project Server 2013
3. Part 3: Configure Project Server 2013 Application Service
4. Part 4: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013
5. Part 5: Deploy Project Web App in an existing site collection – Project Server 2013

Configure Project Server 2013 Application Service

After Project Server 2013 is installed, the following configuration steps are required before creating a Project Web App site and using Project Server:

 

Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 – Part 2: Install and Configure Project Server 2013

This is the second part for Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 Article,

Article Content’s Index:

1. Part 1: Overview and Prepare for a deployment of Project Server 2013
2. Part 2: Install and Configure Project Server 2013
3. Part 3: Configure Project Server 2013 Application Service
4. Part 4: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013
5. Part 5: Deploy Project Web App in an existing site collection – Project Server 2013

Install and Configure Project Server 2013

This Part describes how to install Project Server 2013. The basic procedure is as follows:

 

Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 – Part 1: Overview and Prepare for a deployment of Project Server 2013

There are many distributed articles and posts to install and/or deploy Project Server 2013, and I desire to write a full instructions for how to install, configure, and deploy Project Server 2013 step by step using best practices and testing what’s on the internet on my server. And put it all in one place to make it an easy reference for me and my followers.

This Article contains 5 Parts as following:

1. Part 1: Overview and Prepare for a deployment of Project Server 2013
2. Part 2: Install and Configure Project Server 2013
3. Part 3: Configure Project Server 2013 Application Service
4. Part 4: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013
5. Part 5: Deploy Project Web App in an existing site collection – Project Server 2013

Overview

Project Server 2013 enables organizations to get started, prioritize project portfolio investments, and deliver with the intended business value. It’s the flexible solution for project portfolio management (PPM) and everyday work.

 

Export and/or Import All Farm Solutions in SharePoint 2010/2013 Farm using PowerShell

Sometimes you may need to export all SharePoint 2010/2013 farm solutions as a backup process or to deploy them from staging environment to production environment.

Export Farm Solutions

1. Create a backup folder on “C” and give it a meaningful name like “SP2010 Farm Solutions Backup”.
   
2. Open SharePoint 2010 Management Shell
    
3. Change directory or navigate to backup folder
    
4. Enter the following Script to extract all farm solution to current location directory
   
   (Get-SPFarm).Solutions | ForEach-Object{$var = (Get-Location).Path + “\” + $_.Name; $_.SolutionFile.SaveAs($var)} 

   
   

   
   

5. Go and open the target folder to see all exported solutions

Import Farm Solutions

After copy the folder that contains exported solution on production or target farm server.

1. Open SharePoint 2010 Management Shell
2. Change directory or navigate to folder that contains all solutions to be deployed
3. Enter the following Script to extract all farm solution to current location directoryGet-ChildItem | ForEach-Object{Add-SPSolution -LiteralPath $_.Fullname}
   
    
4. So all solutions are added to the target farm.

For more information about adding and deploying SP2010 Farm solution, please to open and read Adding and Deploying SharePoint 2010 .WSP Solutions

Same scripts can be used for SharePoint 2013 Farm Solution

I Hope this useful for you,

Thanks.

 

From The Field: Move a Site Collection to New Content DB with New Managed Path

Many of clients have multiple site collection stored in the same content DB of the web application. And in some day, they will discover that one of site collection contents is growing so fast, and they decide to have a dedicated Content DB for this Site Sollection. Also they may want to change the Managed Path (url) of site, i.e.: from “http://hostheader/sites/sitename” to “http://hostheader/sitename”.

In this article, I will explain how I did these requirements in the following scenario:

1. I have a web application with url (http://sps:1), and all site collection under this web application shared the same Content DB (Name: WSS_SP01_Content_01)

2. I have 2 Site Collection (Host Header Root Site and HR Site):

• Main portal Site Collection under Host Header Root Managed Path (/)
  
  
  
• HR portal site collection under the managed path (/sites/hr/)
  
  
  
• I want to move the “HR” site to a new Content DB called(WSS_SP01_HR_Content_01)
• I want to change the url from (/sites/hr/) to (/hr/).

The Steps are (using PowerShell):

1. Open PowerShell – SharePoint 2010 Management Shell

2. Create Explicit Managed Path for target Web Application, and call it “hr”

• Enter the following line in PowerShell:
  New-SPManagedPath -RelativeURL “hr” -WebApplication “http://sps:1” –Explicit
• The PowerShell Results are:
  
  
• Check it from Central Administration > Manage Web Applications > Managed Path:
  

3. Create a new Content DB called “WSS_SP01_HR_Content_01”

• Enter the following line in PowerShell
  New-SPContentDatabase -name “WSS_SP01_HR_Content_01” -WebApplication “http://sps:1” -MaxSiteCount 1 -WarningSiteCount 0
• Max Site Count = 1, to make sure No farther Site Collection can be added to this Content DB
• The PowerShell Results are:
  
  
• Check it from Central Administration > Manage Web Applications > Managed Content Databases:
  

4. Back up Site Collection “/sites/hr” to prepare moving it

• Enter the following line in PowerShell::
  Backup-SPSite “http://sps:1/sites/hr” -Path “C:\HR_TempSC.bak” –force
  
• Check the file on “C” Drive
  

5. Removing the Site Collection from old managed path

• Enter the following line in PowerShell::
  Remove-SPSite -Identity “http://sps:1/sites/hr” -GradualDelete -Confirm:$false
• Check the current number of Site Collection of Main Content DB (WSS_SP01_Content_01) , It should be 2 ( minus the HR Site Collection)
  

6. Restoring Site Collection to new Managed Path “/hr”

• Enter the following line in PowerShell::
  Restore-SPSite “http://sps:1/hr” -Path “C:\HR_TempSC.bak” -DatabaseServer “SPS” -DatabaseName “WSS_SP01_HR_Content_01” -GradualDelete -Force -Confirm:$false
• Check the current number of Site Collection of Main Content DB (WSS_SP01_HR_Content_01), It should be “1”
  

7. Remove the backup files from the backup directory

• Enter the following line in PowerShell:
  Remove-Item “C:\HR_TempSC.bak”

8. Check the old url of HR, It should be not exists

9. Check the new HR Site Collection url “http://sps:1/hr” :

10. Check the Site Collection Properties, Central Admin > Application Management > View all site collections

Conclusion

I move and change the managed path of the site collection as simple as described before using PowerShell script. It is easy, clear, and save my time. and the following is the list of scripts i used in article:

1. New-SPManagedPath -RelativeURL “hr” -WebApplication “http://sps:1” -Explicit
   
2. New-SPContentDatabase -name “WSS_SP01_HR_Content_01” -WebApplication “http://sps:1” –MaxSiteCount 1 -WarningSiteCount 0
3. Backup-SPSite “http://sps:1/sites/hr” -Path “c:\HR_TempSC.bak” -force
   
4. Remove-SPSite -Identity “http://sps:1/sites/hr” -GradualDelete -Confirm:$false
   
5. Restore-SPSite “http://sps:1/hr” -Path “C:\HR_TempSC.bak” -DatabaseServer “SPS” -DatabaseName “WSS_SP01_HR_Content_01” -GradualDelete -Force -Confirm:$false
   
6. Remove-Item “c:\HR_TempSC.bak”

For farther information about Windows PowerShell for SharePoint 2010, you can visit: Windows PowerShell for SharePoint Foundation 2010 reference

I Hope this useful for you,

Thanks.