Fix to my Config Store framework and list provisioning tips

Had a couple of reports recently of an issue with my Config Store solution, which provides a framework for using a SharePoint list to store configuration values. If you're using the Config Store this article will definitely be of interest to you, but I've also picked up a couple of general tips on list provisioning which I want to pass on. I have to thank Richard Browne (no blog) of my old company cScape, as the fix and several of the tips have come from him - as well as alerting me to the problem, he also managed to fix it before I did, so many thanks and much kudos mate :-)

Config Store problem

Under some circumstances, fields in the Config Store list were not editable because they no longer appeared on the list edit form (EditForm.aspx). So instead of having 4 editable fields, only the 'Config name' field shows in the form:

I've not fully worked out the pattern, but I think the problem may only appear if you provision the list on a server which has the October or December Cumulative Update installed - either that or it's a difference between Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 environments (which would be even more bizarre). Either way, it seems something changed in the way the provisioning XML was handled somewhere. This is why the problem was undetected in the earlier releases.

I had seen this problem before - but only when the list was moved using Content Deployment (e.g. using the Content Deployment Wizard) - the original 'source' list was always fine. We managed to work around this by writing some code which 're-added' the fields to the list from the content type, since they were always actually present on the content type and the data was still corrected stored. Having to run this code every time we deployed the list was an irritation rather than critical, but something I wanted to get to the bottom of - however, on finding some folks were running into this in 'normal' use meant that it became a bigger issue.

The cause

I always knew the problem would be down to a mistake in the provisioning XML, but since I'd looked for it on previous occasions I knew it was something I was seeing but not seeing. In my case, Richard spotted that I was using the wrong value in my FieldRef elements under the ContentType element - I was mistakenly thinking that the 'Name' attribute needed to match up with the ''StaticName' attribute given to the field; the documentation says this attribute contains the internal name of the field. So my FieldRefs looked like this:

<ContentType ID="0x0100E3438B2389F84cc3965600BC16BF32E7" Name="Config item" 
               Group="Config Store content types" Description="Represents an item in the config store." Version="0">
    <FieldRefs>
      <FieldRef ID="{33F5C8B4-A6BB-41a4-AB24-69F2152974C5}" Name="ConfigCategory" Required="TRUE" />
      <FieldRef ID="{BD413479-48AB-41f5-8040-918F32EBBCC5}" Name="ConfigValue" Required="TRUE" />
      <FieldRef ID="{84D42C64-D0BD-4c76-8ED3-0A9E0D261111}" Name="ConfigItemDescription" />
    </FieldRefs>
  </ContentType>

..to match up with fields which looked like this:

<Field ID="{33F5C8B4-A6BB-41a4-AB24-69F2152974C5}"
      Name="Config category"
      DisplayName="Config category"
      StaticName="ConfigCategory"
      ....
      ....
/>  

The CORRECTED version looks like this (note the change in value for the Name attribute of FieldRefs):

<ContentType ID="0x0100E3438B2389F84cc3965600BC16BF32E7" Name="Config item"
             Group="Config Store content types" Description="Represents an item in the config store." Version="0">
    <FieldRefs>
        <FieldRef ID="{33F5C8B4-A6BB-41a4-AB24-69F2152974C5}" Name="Config category" Required="TRUE" />
        <FieldRef ID="{BD413479-48AB-41f5-8040-918F32EBBCC5}" Name="Config value" Required="TRUE" />
        <FieldRef ID="{84D42C64-D0BD-4c76-8ED3-0A9E0D261111}" Name="Config item description" />
    </FieldRefs>
</ContentType>

So, the main learning I got from this is to remember that the 'Name' of the FieldRef attribute needs to match the 'Name' of the Field attribute - that simple. Why did it work before? No idea unfortunately.

However, I also picked up a few more things I didn't know about, partly from Richard (this guy needs a blog!) and partly from some other reading/experimenting..

Some handy things to know about list provisioning

• To make a field mandatory on a list, the 'Required' attribute must be 'TRUE'. Not 'True' or 'true' - this is one of the cases where the provisioning framework is pernickety about that 6-choice boolean ;-)
• FieldRefs need an ID and Name as a minimum (which must match the values in the 'Field' declaration), but you can override certain other things here like the DisplayName - this mirrors what is possible in the UI.
• You don't have to include the list .aspx files (DispForm.aspx, EditForm.aspx and NewForm.aspx) in your Feature if you use the 'SetupPath' attribute in the 'Form' element in schema.xml (assuming you don't need to associate custom list forms).
• You can use the 'ContentTypeRef' element to associate your content type with the list (specify just content type ID), rather than using the 'ContentType' element which needs to redeclare all the FieldRefs.
• It's safe to remove all the default 'system' fields from the 'Fields' section of schema.xml

Going further than these tips, the best thing I found on this is Oskar Austegard's MOSS: The dreaded schema.xml which shows how you can strip a ton of stuff out of schema.xml. I've not tried it yet, but I'm sure that will be my starting point for the next list I provision declaratively. If you're interested in the nuts and bolts of list provisioning, I highly recommend you read it.

Happy XML'ing..

Slide deck from my deployment talk at Best Practices Conference

Had a great time presenting at the European SharePoint Best Practices Conference last week. I've been trying to put my finger on what made it such a good conference and I'm actually not sure, but I notice that other speakers and attendees have also been full of praise, so it's not just me. The event itself was extremely well-organized with excellent content, and Steve Smith and his team did a great job of looking after us speakers.

Highlights for me on the dev track were sessions from AC, Todd Bleeker, Eric (or "Uncle Eric" as I like to think of him, with his wise words on high-performance coding :-)) and Andrew Woody, but whenever I did stray from developer content I seemed to run into a great session like Mike Watson's on SQL Server in relation to SharePoint. Similarly I heard good things about speakers like Dan McPherson doing innovative sessions on the Information Worker track which I was disappointed to miss. [UPDATE: Here's a gratuitous shot of me in my session:]

Another highlight was being on the two dev panel sessions we did, and having an interesting debate in one of them with Todd on approaches for provisioning - declarative (Features) vs. programmatic (code/PowerShell etc.). This was probably a good lead-in to my talk the next day, and some folks came up to say they really liked this conversation and that we covered it from angles they hadn't considered, which was good to hear. [UPDATE: Photo below of the second session, chaired by AC and with (from left to right) Todd Bleeker, Stacy Draper, Maurice Prather, Andrew Woodward, Ben Robb, Brett Lonsdale, me (with the mic) and Eric Shupps:]

So all in all, a top conference, and fantastic to catch up with so many friends. Here's the link for my deck:

Slide deck - Approaches and best practices for deploying SharePoint sites through multiple environments (dev, QA, UAT, production)