Displaying the Render Date and/or Time in SharePoint Pages

This is a simple enough task with a little JavaScript.  Inserting the script below into your master page will output the date and time in the simplest way possible when the page is rendered: If your language is American English, you will see the following: Fri Oct 24 18:19:06 EDT 2008.  Of course, if you’d…

SharePoint Workflow History “Disappears”

By default, workflow history will "disappear" after 60 days.  Microsoft has built this into MOSS intentionally to ensure good performance.  By deleting old workflow history, it’s more likely (but hardly guaranteed) that the Workflow History list (/Lists/Workflow History by default) will stay below the magic 2000 items per list limit.  (See the "Working with Large…

SharePoint Workflows: Failed on Start (retrying)

At one of my clients, I’m using a pretty simple SharePoint Designer workflow to manage their Purchase Order approval process.  About half the time, the workflow runs fine.  The other half, the workflow instance gets stuck with the status ‘Failed on Start (retrying)’.  If I terminate the “stuck” instance and fire it off again manually,…

Error message when you try to attach a file in a custom form on the Web site in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: “This form was customized not working with attachment”

I’ve had several clients ask about this, and my answer to date has been “It’s a known ‘feature’ or bug.”  I just ran across this Microsoft KB article that shows you how to fix this issue by loading the 953749 hotfix: SYMPTOMS You use Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 to add a Custom List Form…

SharePoint Error: “The list cannot be displayed in Datasheet view for one or more of the following reasons…”

I recently updated my Windows XP SP3 machine with some recommended updates from Windows Update.  After I did so, I received the following error every time I tried to open a Datasheet view in SharePoint: The list cannot be displayed in Datasheet view for one or more of the following reasons: A datasheet component compatible…

Common SharePoint Question: How Do I Know How Much Disk Space I’m Using?

Here’s an easy one — except that most of your users won’t know about it.  I was just asked how someone can know about how much disk space they are using with their SharePoint sites.  Well, lo and behold, if you are a Site Collection Administrator, you can (at the root of the Site Collection),…

Disposing of Objects Correctly in MOSS or WSS 3.0

One of the big "gotchas" in coding against the SharePoint Object Model is not disposing of resources properly.  In relatively little time, you can find that your server is cycling itself to free up resources, with no apparent reason.  The first thing you should check is your own code. Roger Lamb has written an excellent,…