• Which forms to use “on the go”
• Offline and online submission
• Actual product demonstration on Android and iOS
• Digital Signatures and annotations
• And much more!

Step 1. In Form Designer use On Submit event to insert Custom Script before Save Form action:

Step 2. Then add the following script:

//saving single selection
string choiceValue = "";
if(data.resolveNode("Fire").value == "Yes"){
    choiceValue = "Fire";
}else if(data.resolveNode("Water").value == "Yes"){
    choiceValue = "Water";
}else if(data.resolveNode("Earth").value == "Yes"){
    choiceValue = "Earth";
}

//saving multiple selection
SPFieldMultiChoiceValue multChoiceValue = new SPFieldMultiChoiceValue();
if(data.resolveNode("Fire").value == "Yes"){
    multChoiceValue.Add("Fire");
}
if(data.resolveNode("Water").value == "Yes"){
    multChoiceValue.Add("Water");
}
if(data.resolveNode("Earth").value == "Yes"){
    multChoiceValue.Add("Earth");
}

SPListItemCollection listItems = currentWeb.Lists["custList"].Items;

SPListItem item = listItems.Add();
item["Name"] = data.resolveNode("NameField").value;
item["SuperPower"] = choiceValue;
item["Multiple"] = multChoiceValue;

item.Update();

Step 3. Save and Deploy the Form and see if everything is fine.

A lot of our valued customers are also users of Nintex Workflow 2010. Both products are quite flexible and have enough accessibility to be working together with just a few configuration changes advised:

Step 1. Go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebServices\PdfForms.Services

Step 2. Open web.config with text editor

Step 3. Add following lines to <authorizedTypes> node.

<authorizedType Assembly="Nintex.Workflow, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=913f6bae0ca5ae12" Namespace="Nintex.Workflow.*" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />
<authorizedType Assembly="Nintex.Workflow, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=913f6bae0ca5ae12" Namespace="Nintex.Workflow" TypeName="RunNowParameterOptions" Authorized="True" />

Web.config should look like this:

<authorizedTypes>

      <authorizedType Assembly="System.Workflow.Activities, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" Namespace="System.Workflow.*" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="System.Workflow.ComponentModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" Namespace="System.Workflow.*" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="System.Workflow.Runtime, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" Namespace="System.Workflow.*" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="System.Transactions, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" Namespace="System*" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" Namespace="System*" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" Namespace="System*" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowActions, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowActions" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="Nintex.Workflow, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=913f6bae0ca5ae12" Namespace="Nintex.Workflow.*" TypeName="*" Authorized="True" />

      <authorizedType Assembly="Nintex.Workflow, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=913f6bae0ca5ae12" Namespace="Nintex.Workflow" TypeName="RunNowParameterOptions" Authorized="True" />

</authorizedTypes>

Step 4. Save the file and run IISReset.

It is also worth mentioning that in order to create new PDF documents, the PDF SharePoint Web Services must be used instead of Nintex Workflow “Create Item” Action and PDF SharePoint Content type.  

Step 1. In Form Designer use On Submit event to insert Custom Script before Save Form action:

Step 2. Then add the script with the naming logic like the following:

or like this:

Step 3. Now Save and Deploy the Form and verify the results. File names for the new forms in the document library should correspond to the naming patterns you just defined.

Step 1: Open PDF Forms Designer and create your PDF template. For this tutorial we’ve prepared one, with “DropDownField1″ drop-down field:

Step 2: Add custom server side “Form Load” script where we can define values for the selection in the dropdown. In the following example we will fill-in the dropdown values for the “DropdownSource” data field using predefined separator:  “first;second;third”

Or, in a more realistic scenario, you would probably want to load some data from the SharePoint List using following script instead:

//getting target list

SPList list = currentWeb.Lists["List Name"];

string dropdownItems= “”;

foreach(SPItem item in list.Items){

//we take specific value from each list item

dropdownItems+= item["Field name"] + “;“;

}

data.resolveNode(“DropdownSource”).value = dropdownItems;

Step 3: Then, you only need to use the client side “On Form Ready” event with a script to and populate dropdown UI element with the values from the data field:

var values = xfa.resolveNode(“$data.. DropdownSource”).value;
var items = values.split(‘;’);
for(var i =0;i<items.length;i++){
xfa.resolveNode(“$form.Root.Default..DropdownField1″).addItem(items[i],items[i]);
}

Step 4: Save and deploy form. Then add the Content type to a document library. Create a New Document in that Library – the drop-down field is populated:

If you’d like us to do a how-to guide for any specific case, please leave us a comment or contact us by email. We’d be more than happy to do it for you.

Step 1: Prepare a list. For this example, we have prepared Custom List called “custList” with text field called “Field1”:

Step 2: Design form in PDFSharepoint Designer

Step 3: Open “Form Submit” Rules and add “Execute script” action. Here is script example:

try{
SPListItemCollection listItems = currentWeb.Lists["custList"].Items;
SPListItem item = listItems.Add();
item["Title"] = “title_here”;
item["Field1"] = data.resolveNode(“TextField2″).value;
item.Update();
}catch(Exception ex){
data.resolveNode(“ErrorMessage”).value = ex.Message;
data.resolveNode(“ErrorMessage2″).value = ex.StackTrace;
  //this will help to debug the code, in case is script fails
}

* This try/catch structure allows us to easily find an issue if server side script fails

Step 4: Deploy the form to any Document Library, in our case the Document Library is called “TestLib”
Step 5: Create New Document in that Library and fill-in the form:

Step 6: Submit the form and check you list:

The new item is automatically saved to “custList” List.

If you’d like us to do a how-to guide for any specific case, please leave us a comment or contact us by email. We’d be more than happy to do it for you.

This article is step by step guide how to populate PDF forms with data form External list. For the purpose of this guide, we have prepared the following External Content Type:

(Click on the image to view it in full size)

Assuming “ADDRESS” field is unique, we can identify an External list item through that field.

Step 1. Prepare template with custom server “Form Load” action.

Add the following script to a “Form Load”event:

Step 2. Prepare custom action.

First, we need to deploy our PDF form to a specified folder.

Note: There is information about exception in TextField3 and TextField4.

Then we need to copy the URL of new document. This can be made by opening Documents > New documents > Our Content type name.

Next step is to create new custom action in Central Administration for our External Content Type, and we will call it “Start Review”

In the “Navigate to this URL” field, add the copied URL, followed by “&itemID={0}”. Then add parameter “ADDRESS” to URL “Parameters section”. In the end the URL should be similar to this:

Step 3. Create External List in your Library and test custom action.

This is how External List appears in Library:

Once “Start Review” action is assigned, clicking on our a specific list item will open a new PDF form and the corresponding list data is contained in it:

In this Webinar:

• How to create a procurement  process in SharePoint 2010 with workflow and PDF form;
• Use SharePoint Workflow actions to manipulate data in Procurement form;
• Display how external parties can fill-in PDF forms;
• How procurement officer can review and approve documents
• Q&A session

PDFSharePoint Webinar series brings you a new exciting event every time. You easily can adjust knowledge from this webinar to create Change Control or Employee onboarding processes

The webinar is intended to the wide audience of SharePoint users, business analysts and administrators as well as all who are just considering introducing PDF forms in SharePoint environment.

All attendees will receive FREE access for two weeks to the dedicated demo environment and have the chance to evaluate PDF forms on their own.

All that is required to enable the feature is full Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 or Adobe Acrobat X Professional edition during the design of PDF form template. It is important to understand that once PDF form is deployed, you don’t have to use Adobe Acrobat Professional and can enjoy PDF forms with free Adobe Reader.

Creating PDF form template with Reader Enabled functionality

To create a Reader Enabled PDF Form with PDFSharePoint, open “PDF Forms Templates” and create a “New document”:

A new dialog will appear, prompting you to select Form type. For this particular case, select the “Static Form with Advanced Features” option and click “Next”. Select your Template type – either “Blank Template” or upload an existing PDF Form as a template, and click “Next” again. When completing the Form wizard, PDF Forms Designer will open. Design your PDF Form, click Save upon completion and deploy the form.

Deploying Advanced form

Select your deployment type preference and click next. For this example we will select the default “Generate Content Type” option.

There are four steps that to enabling Reader extended feature that should be completed during deployment and they are slightly different when using Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Acrobat X.

Enabling Reader Extended Features in Adobe Acrobat Pro 9

Step 1: Download the PDF Form template.
Step 2: Open the file in Adobe Acrobat 9
Step 3: Go to “Advanced” menu, select “Extend features in Adobe Reader” and save the file.

Step 4: Upload the Reader Extended file back to PDFSharePoint deployment panel and click “Next”. This will generate the Content type:

Click “Finish” to complete the deployment

Also watch our video tutorial for enabling Reader Extended Features for PDFSharePoint form in Adobe Acrobat 9:

Enabling Reader Extended Features in Adobe Acrobat Pro X

Step 1: Download the PDF Form template.
Step 2: Open the file in Adobe Acrobat X
Step 3: Go to “File” menu, select “Save As” -> “Render Extended PDF” and select “Enable Additional Features” option and save the file.

Step 4: Upload the Reader Extended file back to PDFSharePoint deployment panel and click “Next”. This will generate the Content type:

Now that the PDF form has Reader extended feature enabled, it can be added it to a Document Library or a SharePoint list; form can be accessed off-browser, in free Adobe Reader, and offline data can be saved.

Also watch our video tutorial for enabling Reader Extended Features for PDFSharePoint form in Adobe Acrobat X:

The Reader Extended feature for PDFSharePoint forms will change the way you work with your PDF Forms in SharePoint. PDFSharePoint v2.3 is released this March 15. Make sure to request your free Demo environment and evaluate PDFSharePoint yourself. Empower your business today!

If you have any questions, please leave us a comment. We’d love to hear from you.

In this Webinar:

• PDFSharePoint: What is it?
• More ways to reuse existing forms or create new ones
• More ways to use PDF forms in SharePoint
• Digital Signatures
• Demonstration
• Q&A

Some of the questions we had during the event were very interesting and you may want to stick around for the Q&A Session. A recording of the Webinar can be found below:

You may also find the presentation sheets on SlideShare:

Please feel free to leave your comments on PDFSharePoint and Webinar below. We’d love to hear from you!

PDFSharePoint v2.3 will be released on March 12, additional information will be released soon and we promise it will be very intriguing.

For more information, please contact us. Make sure to also Request a Demo and see how PDF and SharePoint are better together!

PDF SharePoint provides Web Services that allow to retrieve and update PDF forms data and template. This guide describes how to create simple console application to work with PDF SharePoint Web Services.

Please note that this guide is intended for advanced users.

Preparations

1. Add service reference.

Use the following  web service url: http://yourSiteName/_vti_bin/PDFForms/PDFForms.svc/MEX

Replace “yourSiteName” with the proper site name.  When using it as reference we should add “/MEX” at the end. Remove “/MEX” if used in code.

2. Get service client.

This code will prepare service client for work:

* Note: Usually it is necessary to increase quotas as XFA document size is larger than default quota would allow.

Creating document

3. Create document.

Use this code to create PDF document based on specific content type:

Data is stored as XML. Root element is always named “Root”. Elements under Root are visible in “Data fields” pane in Forms designer. XML node name is equal to data field’s name.

4. Check the Results

This is sample PDF form instance after a sample console application run.

Getting document from library 

If you work with only one document, it is more convenient to use GetXFADocumentByFileUrl method instead of GetXfaDocument. Line 3 parses string to XML document.

XML string represents entire XFA, which includes form template and actual data. Code can modify PDF field’s data, manipulate with controls and do all additional modification within XFA specification. Next steps describe how to operate with fields data and how to save all changes.

Changing and updating document

Here is an example PDF Form created in PDF Forms Designer:

The sample Form contains four text fields; Author, Text and Date fields are included into repeatable section rSection.

5. Access to Root element of PDF form

After this code, dataRoot object contains a reference to data Root element node. It can be used then to find (or update) data fields.

6. Working with Root element

In line 1, code changes value of PDF data field “TextField1”. Code from line 2 to 6 adds new item to repeatable section “rSection” with fields “date”, “author” and “text”.

7. Save changes

In this example, Usage of UpdateXFADocumentByFileUrl method is justified because we have url reference to the instance of PDF form. If the modified XML includes updated data fields and you want to update SharePoint columns, then you have to provide value “true” to the 3rd parameter.

8. Check the Result

Here is a sample PDF form instance before and after a sample console application run:

-Before the changes:

- After the changes:

Please contact us if you need help with a specific case or select the “How-to” tag for more topics.

Join our product evangelist, Dmitry Ivahno, in this 45-minute session in which he will present:

• Demonstration of PDF forms with SharePoint 2010 and free Adobe Reader
• New offline form capabilities
• Anonymous forms support
• Digital Signature support
• Reusing form created in Adobe LiveCycle Designer
• Q&A session

The webinar is intended to the wide audience of SharePoint users, business analysts and administrators as well as all who are just considering introducing PDF forms in SharePoint environment.

All attendees will receive FREE access for two weeks to the dedicated demo environment and have the chance to evaluate PDF forms on their own.

Is it possible to create a PDF Form that will be hidden for all users, except the user that submitted it? PDF SharePoint provides special mechanism to operate with document permissions in runtime. Follow this step-by-step guide to assign such permissions:

Step 1: Prepare a group containing all users that have access to your Document Library. In this case it is called “Customers”.

Step 2: Open PDF Forms Designer and prepare simple PDF template:

Step 3: Now we need to add custom server action; for this tutorial we will use Server Submit rules:

Step 4: Use “Set SharePoint permissions” action to set the permissions:

Step 5: Click “Permissions”. A new dialog will appear: remove permissions for “Customers” group and add Full Control to Current user:

*Note: to change mode from “Add Permissions” to “Remove Permissions”, simply click on mode name.

Step 6:  Save and deploy form, then add content type to Document Library.

Step 7: Now user will see only the forms that they filled.

This is how “testuser2” from “Customers” group sees Document Library:

This is how Site Collection Administrator sees Document Library:

Please contact us if you need help with a specific case or select the “How-to” tag for more topics.

LiveCycle integrates PDF Forms and Flex/Flash Forms into an environment that includes workflow, content management, rights management, and other capabilities which are required for building forms-based solutions. But despite being successful, Adobe has decided to divest in LiveCycle and invest in digital media and digital marketing. This is a big opportunity Microsoft SharePoint Partners for few reasons:

• Adobe’s enterprise capabilities are now very questionable.
• Adobe LiveCycle customers should be concerned about their future and considering SharePoint 2010 with PDF forms.
• Adobe LiveCycle customers with PDF forms can switch to SharePoint 2010 with PDFSharePoint add-on, which integrates PDF forms with SharePoint 2010 (check out how PDF and SharePoint can be integrated).

SharePoint 2010 is now stronger than ever with options for workflows, collaboration, content management, and more. With PDFSharePoint, PDF forms can be tightly and easy integrated with SharePoint 2010 ecosystem (synchronizing PDF fields with SharePoint columns, use free Adobe Reader to submit forms, integration with Business Connectivity Services, etc.)

For more information on this opportunity, please visit our website, or contact Reneta Zvezdeva {reni [at] spzap [dot] com}, Partner Alliance Manager at PDFSharePoint if you have additional questions about PDF forms in SharePoint.

Use this in 2012 to remove any doubt from your customer’s mind about the right path to take.

Source [Future of Adobe LiveCycle Questionable: It’s time to get aggressive with SharePoint and PDF forms!]

“SP ZAP LLC is delighted to announce the relocation of the company’s Headquarters to new office in Irvine, CA. The relocation naturally reflects the recent business growth which required larger working space to operate more effectively”, said Reneta Zvezdeva, Partner Alliance Manager at SP ZAP LLC.

SP ZAP LLC moves the office from nearby Culver Drive, Irvine, CA where the company reached maximum capacity. The new location – 780 Roosevelt in Irvine, CA – provides the space it needs to accommodate its growing business.

About SP ZAP LLC

Founded in 2009, SP ZAP’s mission is to offer innovative solutions for SharePoint ecosystem that provide great functionality and deliver great value.

Headquarters: 780 Roosevelt, Irvine, CA
Phone:  +888 792 7871; Fax 1.949.215.3664
Web:  http://www.pdfsharepoint.com/

Product & Features: PDFSharePoint, SPZAP’s featured solution, provides unprecedented level of integration between SharePoint 2010 and PDF forms. Ability to reuse existing forms, PDFSharePoint Workflow, Digital Signatures support, custom scripting, and Excel services are some of the highlights of functionality implemented in PDFSharePoint.

PDFSharePoint Demo environment: PDFSharePoint Demo environment provides a free, exclusive and secure cloud environment, allowing customers to evaluate product’s capabilities. More information on PDFSharePoint is available at http://pdfsharepoint.com.

Request form for Demo environment available at: http://www.pdfsharepoint.com/forms/demo_request.php

First of all, we prepare a simple template for this case; it contains two read only text fields where we will put SharePoint document id and document version value.

Next, we need to add custom server script, for this I will use Server On Load rules.

Here is script itself.

if(!form.IsNew()){

    //first we need to check if form instance is new, because unsaved form does not have version and ID yet
SPListItemVersionCollection versions = currentWeb.GetFile(form.DocumentID).Item.Versions;

   //here I am getting version data from my document
string version = versions[0].VersionLabel;
data.resolveNode(“PDFDocumentVersion”).value = version;

    data.resolveNode(“PDFDocumentID”).value = form.DocumentID.ToString();
}
else{
data.resolveNode(“PDFDocumentVersion”).value = “1.0″;

    data.resolveNode(“PDFDocumentID”).value = “Unsaved”;
}

Now let’s deploy our form and check it out.

Here is how new document looks:

And here is the same form after it has been saved in the SharePoint:

This use case is a good example how PDF forms can expose SharePoint contextual data.

If you have specific questions about PDF forms and PDF SharePoint, feel free to contact us or select the “How-to” tag for more topics.

But there’s more to the story.   As part of the realignment, Adobe is shifting resources out of Adobe LiveCycle and putting it into their Create Suite and Web Experience Management offerings.

Consider:

• An article in the Ottawa Citizen reported  “Adobe will curtail marketing and future development of LiveCycle” and that “Adobe is cutting 37% of its Ottawa based LiveCycle team.”
• Gartner’s analysts recommend “…switch to another vendor’s BPMS before making further investments [in Adobe LiveCycle].“
• Reuters published an article stating  “Adobe plans to scale back promotion of LiveCycle“  and  that “it will stop marketing it, though it will continue support.”

This is an unprecedented opportunity to turn up the heat.

For years Adobe has been our top competitor  Adobe LiveCycle was released in 2007 and has been successful with banks, insurance companies and government agencies by providing them with a way to move simple Acrobat (PDF) forms into an enterprise applications environment.   LiveCycle integrates PDF Forms and Flex/Flash Forms into an environment that includes workflow, content management, rights management, and other capabilities which are required for building forms-based solutions.   But despite being successful, Adobe has decided to divest in LiveCycle and invest in digital media and digital marketing.

This means 3 things for Microsoft SharePoint Partners:

• Adobe’s enterprise capabilities are now very questionable.
• Adobe LiveCycle customers should be concerned about their future and considering SharePoint 2010 with PDF forms.
• Adobe LiveCycle customers with  PDF forms can switch to SharePoint 2010 with PDFSharePoint add-on, which integrates PDF forms with SharePoint 2010 (check out how PDF and SharePoint can be integrated).

SharePoint 2010 is now stronger than ever with options for workflows, collaboration, content management, and more. With PDFSharePoint, PDF forms can be tightly and easy integrated with SharePoint 2010 ecosystem (synchronizing PDF fields with SharePoint columns, use free Adobe Reader to submit forms, integration with Business Connectivity Services, etc.)

Use this unique opportunity and drive SharePoint 2010 and PDF forms adoption.

Call to action:  Proactively seek out Adobe LiveCycle customers and let them know about SharePoint 2010 and PDF forms.  Contact Reneta Zvezdeva (email: reni[@]spzap.com), Partner Alliance Manager, PDFSharePoint if you have additional questions about PDF forms in SharePoint.

Use this in 2012 to remove any doubt from your customer’s mind about the right path to take.

The Decision

Following last summer’s announcement, Adobe® decided to scale back their enterprise product: Adobe® LiveCycle®, by putting it into a category of “legacy enterprise business segment”. This decision will surely impact every organization currently using or planning to implement Adobe LiveCycle ES (Enterprise Suite).

The Details

“Adobe will ramp down its investment and its focus on LiveCycle”, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch said. LiveCycle Content Services ES2 will no longer be updated, although existing customers will receive support. According to Gartner, this step implies that LiveCycle Process Management ES2 and LiveCycle Content Services ES2 are no longer important to the company’s strategic direction.

The consequence

Adobe LiveCycle users and prospects are now in a search for a replacement and the process is hardly an easy one considering the vast area of possibilities. Let’s also mention the necessity to change an entire working model, servers and server operating systems, changing business environment, workflow solutions, bringing back the learning curve and last but not least, redeveloping enormous amount of data to a different file format. While there is a fair amount of PDF solutions on the market, finding a noble heir for Adobe LiveCycle is not an easy task. Or is it?

The solution

PDFSharePoint is definitely an alternative worth considering. If customer already has dynamic PDF forms (XFA), then they can integrate them with SharePoint 2010 platform. Everything that Adobe LiveCycle workflow and document repository could do, SharePoint 2010 can do even better. PDFSharePoint is a SharePoint 2010 solution that enables integration of dynamic PDF forms with SharePoint 2010 platform. The unprecedented level of integration between SharePoint 2010 and PDF forms is what PDFSharePoint provides. Ability to reuse existing forms, PDF SharePoint Workflow, Digital Signatures support, custom scripting, Excel services are just the highlights of functionality you can expect from PDFSharePoint.

Numerous institutions in the law, financial, education, government and private sector trusted PDF SharePoint for their everyday SharePoint – PDF Forms tasks. PDF SharePoint Demo environment granted several hundreds of users the opportunity to test how fitting the solution is to their business model, free of charge and free of worries.

To learn more about this opportunity, please visit http://www.pdfsharepoint.com/

Adobe’s clarification

After our post was submitted, Adobe contacted us with a request to clarify future of Adobe Live Cycle product. You can see Josh van Tonder’s comment below. Here is a excerpt:

Adobe remains committed to creating further innovations within the LiveCycle product line and supporting LiveCycle customers. For more information on the future of LiveCycle, please visit:

http://blogs.adobe.com/ADEP/2012/01/the-future-of-livecycle.html

As you can see there are Adobe LiveCycle components which will be extended and supported by Adobe team. We just wish there would be less confusion for partners and customers. In the end, each Adobe LiveCycle customer will make its own decision what is next for them: rely on Adobe’s roadmap for Adobe LiveCycle or consider Gartner’s recommendations.

More details will be published after January 1st, so stay tuned and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

SP ZAP Frontpage SlideShow is the most eye-catching way to display your featured articles, stories or products for your SharePoint site.

Frontpage SlideShow is a Javascript/CSS based webpart combining text and images to create “slides”, as well as slide navigation. Your slides are being rotated one after the other with various fade effects, while text can be displayed/integrated anywhere inside the slideshow. The slideshow’s navigation features play/pause and previous/next buttons, as well as individual slide selection buttons for full control by the user/visitor of your site.

Frontpage SlideShow can  be integrated with WSS 3, MOSS 2007, SharePoint Foundation 2010 or any other edition of SharePoint including sandboxed Office365.

Yours truly,

SP ZAP LLC

* Those customers who have already bought the SlideShow within 2011 can redeem the full price for a credit towards their next purchase. Please use Request Information form to request more details.

During the activation of WSP package in Solution Gallery (right now we are talking about Sandbox solutions), the following error consistently presented itself.

“The sandboxed code execution request was refused because the Sandboxed Code Host Service was too busy to handle the request”

There are several reasons why sandbox service can throw such error. The most common cause it that SharePoint service cannot check certificate revocation at crl.microsoft.com.

There are 3 methods to resolve this issue:

A. Change registry settings
B. Change host file to point clr.microsoft.com to local machine
C. Change system configuration files of Sandbox service to skip certificate verification in Code Access Security policies.

Option B usually is a “no-go” since IT administrators don’t rely like messing with their servers’ hosts files. Option C has another disadvantage: changing configuration files which provided with SharePoint 2010 means you will have to redo the changes if the files are ever overwritten by a service pack or other reinstallation.

So, we usually proceed with option A: setting WinTrust provider setting to the ‘correct’ value on all servers.

Approach #1 (using UI and a little of PowerShell)

1. Open SharePoint 2010 Central Administration
2. Navigate to “Configure service accounts” in Security section
   

   Selecting 'Configure service accounts'

3. Select ‘Windows Service – Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service’ in the dropdown control.
   

   Locate service account for Sandboxed Code Service

4. Then you will see which account is used for Sandbox Service. (in our example, it is DOMAIN\UserCodeServiceAccont)

Now we need to determine Security Identifier (SID) for this service account.

Here comes the SharePoint 2010 PowerShell command:

(Get-SPManagedAccount –Identity “DOMAIN\UserCodeServiceAccont”).Sid.Value

As a result you will get something like this: S-1-5-33-1234504503-987654321-123456789-556677

Now, it is time to check and update registry settings for WinTrust.

1. Open the registry editor and navigate to:
   HKEY_USERS\{SID you obtained earlier}\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinTrust\Trust Providers\Software Publishing
2. Change value of “State” key to 0x00023e00.
3. Restart Sandbox Service
4. Perform IIS reset

Now, repeat the all 1-4 on all SharePoint servers where Sandbox service is running.

Approach #2 (all PowerShell)

Since this issue is quite frequent in SharePoint 2010 environments with Sandboxed service enabled, we just created a PowerShell script that does it all. You would run this script on all SharePoint servers that run “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service”.

Write-Host -ForegroundColor White “Getting ‘Sandboxed Code Service’ instance on current server…”
$srvInstance = Get-SPServiceInstance -Server $env:ComputerName | where {$_.TypeName -eq “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service”}
Write-Host -ForegroundColor White “Getting SID of process identity that runs Sandbox service instance…”
$sid = $srvInstance.Service.ProcessIdentity.CurrentSecurityIdentifier.Value

$path = “Registry::HKEY_USERS\$sid\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinTrust\Trust Providers\Software Publishing”
$key = “State”
$oldValue = (Get-ItemProperty -path $path).$key
$newvalue = 0x00023e00

$hexOldValue = “{0:x}” -f $oldValue
$hexNewValue = “{0:x}” -f $newvalue

Write-Host -ForegroundColor White “Current registry value is: $hexOldValue”

If ($oldValue -eq $newvalue)
{
Write-Host -ForegroundColor White “No change is required.”
} else {
Set-ItemProperty -path $path -name $key -Type DWORD -Value $newvalue
Write-Host -ForegroundColor White “Registry value is set to: $hexNewValue”

If ($srvInstance.Service.Status -eq “Online”)
{
Write-Host -ForegroundColor White “Restarting Sandbox service…”
Restart-Service SPUserCodeV4
Write-Host -ForegroundColor White “Restarting IIS…”
iisreset -noforce
}
}

PowerShell , first attempts to access Sandbox Server on SharePoint server you are currently running this script;

Then script determines SID (Security Identifier) of service accounts that runs the service.

Then it gets registry value and verifies if update is necessary

PowerShell script then updates the registry and determines if service restart is necessary.

Other causes and solutions

Of course, there are other reasons for sandbox service to throw the error. You can see other possible causes and solutions in a very detailed article by SharePoint Development team: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdev/archive/2011/02/08/error-the-sandboxed-code-execution-request-was-refused-because-the-sandboxed-code-host-service-was-too-busy-to-handle-the-request.aspx

Technical details

Strangely enough only very few SharePoint administrators question why do we have to do registry changes. So those few, here is a detailed technical explanation for solution we used above.

To understand technical aspects of our change, we should answer on the following 4 questions:

1. What is “WinTrust?”
2. What does “Software Publishing” provider do?
3. What does my current value of “State” registry key mean?
4. And what does magic value “0x00023e00” mean?

First of all, WinTrust is a name (and DLL) of Microsoft Trust verification services, which provide a common API for determining whether a specific subject can be trusted.

For example, when using Sandboxed WSP software, the service application needs to answer the following question: Is (this embedded in WSP code) trusted (to be labeled as provided by a trusted software publisher) according to the (Software Publisher Trust Hierarchy and System Settings)?

The answer to the question depends on the several factors:

1. Type of information being verified for trust;
2. The Trust Administrator’s local system policy regarding who and what to trust;
3. The Trusted Authority who produced the subject.

Trust verification services are implemented by trust providers. There is a built-in trust provider: Software Publishing. The Software Publishing trust provider allows a calling application to determine whether a software component contains digital signatures that identify it as being authentic software released by a publisher that is trusted on the local user’s system.

Software Publishing trust provider uses registry key (on per user basis) to specify trust policy flags. The policy flags are defined as enumeration of WintrustGetRegPolicyFlags (you can see details here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa388197).

The WintrustGetRegPolicyFlags can have the following combination of bitwise values:

Source: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\Include\WinTrust.h”

In our experience the most common value is ’0x00023c00′. If we use the table above, we can see that such value is a bitwise combination of the following flags:

• WTPF_IGNOREREVOCATIONONTS
• WTPF_OFFLINEOKNBU_COM
• WTPF_OFFLINEOKNBU_IND
• WTPF_OFFLINEOK_COM
• WTPF_OFFLINEOK_IND

In order to change ‘State’ value from ‘0x00023c00’ to the magic value ‘0x00023e00’, we need to add flag WTPF_IGNOREREVOKATION. This flag will set policy for trust provider to ignore revocation check.

Now, we have answered all technical questions and we can make educated changes to your server registries.