Troubleshooting

What are some of the most common reasons why actions fail?

Actions can fail for a number of reasons:

•      One common reason is that the action definition is incompatible with the Active Display. One or more of the columns referenced in the definition may not in exist in the source or destination list(s).

•      Another reason may be insufficient user access to one or more of the lists in the Active Display. Users must have a minimum of Contributor access to a destination list in order for an action to succeed in creating, modifying, or deleting items in that list.

•      Active Displays do not support the use of list names that include commas. If you have a list name that includes a comma and attempt to perform an action on an item in that list, the Active Display will not be able to pass the information correctly to perform the action. It is a good idea to avoid all special characters in both list names and action names.

•      If a user attempts to execute an action and the list identified in the action definition is not available, the following error message will be displayed:

The list [list name or list URL] does not exist.

There’s a URL in one of my Active Display’s columns, but I cannot click on it. Why not?

This may be caused by what appears to be a SharePoint issue. If a list or library item is edited in Datasheet Mode and a URL is placed in a multi-line text field, it will not be displayed as “clickable” in the Active Display. However, if the same item is edited via SharePoint’s edit page, the URL will be clickable.

I selected a mix of document types in an Active Display, executed a Print Document action, and it failed. Why?

For this initial release of the Print Document action type, only Word and Excel documents are supported. If you attempt to print another type of document, such as PowerPoint, the action will fail.

In addition, the Print Document action requires that you have the latest version of the CorasWorks Client on your desktop.

Why don’t I see the usual “Add New Item” link in my Active Display?

The “Add New Item” link will not be included in an Active Display unless site or list grouping is enabled. If you want to include the ability to add a new item, go to the Grouping tab on the administration interface and enable Group by Sites and/or Group By Lists.

I just executed a search and now I don’t see the number of items in each group in the Active Display. Why?

In order to address an issue with list item counts, the Active Displays do not display the number of items for each group after a search has been performed. However, if a search has not been run, the item count will still be shown.

I see the message "Please Execute a Search..." and no items are returned.

This is because the web part in question is set to not show results until a search has been executed. Please enter a searchable text entry into the search box, or choose a search entry from a search list and then press the Search button. Once you have done this, you should see the results displayed or a message stating that no items were found.

I see the message "Requested Result Has Timed Out" and no items are returned.

This is because the web part in question has multi-threading enabled and the current setup of your Web.Config file won't support the amount of time required to return the data from SharePoint. Multi-threading is enabled and disabled on the Other tab of the administration interface.

I do not see the same sites that someone else does.

This is because you do not have the same rights as someone else. Only those sites which you have permission to access will be presented to you.

I receive the error "The format of the URL you specified is incorrect."

This means that the URL you entered in the web part’s "Status Properties" field can not be understood. Please go to the Status Properties field and double-check how you specified the URL. The format of the URL must be either http://Site-URL or http://Site-URL/Sub-Site-Name.

I receive the error "The URL you specified was incorrect and the site cannot be found."

This means that the URL you entered in the web part’s Status Properties field can not be understood. Please go to the Status Properties field and double-check how you specified the URL. The format of the URL must be either http://Site-URL or http://Site-URL/Sub-Site-Name.

I receive the error "No Lists Found"

This indicates that no lists have been found for the site and levels chosen. You should make sure that you have access to the sites you would like search and that you have entered a numerical value in the "Levels Returned" text box on the Sites and Lists tab (Summer 05 and later releases) or the administrative window (previous releases).

I receive the error "The List Being Returned XML is incorrectly formatted."

This indicates that manual administration of the shared web part property "Lists Being Returned" was attempted. Please remove and add the web part to the page and then select the lists to be returned again.

I receive the error "No Items Found..."

This indicates one of the following:

•      The search criteria and/or filter criteria is incorrect

•      The user doesn't have access to the list(s) selected

•      The list or site no longer exists

•      There is no data within any of the lists you have searched

To test your search text, try searching for text taken directly from one of your target lists to see if anything is returned. To test your filter criteria, try choosing a different filter field and searching for the same text to see if anything is returned.

If your search continues to yield no results, check that your target lists are populated, that your target lists and sites still exist, and that you have access to them.

I don't see a list that I know exists within the site.

This can occur for a few reasons:
1) The list must have all of the List Template Required Fields within one of the List Templates Supported (see the Supported Schemas help topic)
2) The list must have been created utilizing the proper list template.

My Active Display is not sorted the way I expected it to sort.

If you choose to group by both sites and lists, the items returned by the Active Display will be sorted alphabetically by URL. This is a known issue and will be resolved in a future release.

My Active Display does not include documents in some of my folders. Why not?

When the Filter Builder is used to apply a filter to an Active Display, documents in the root folder and folders one level deep are shown. However, documents in folders below the first level are not shown. If you must include items in multiple levels of folders, you will need to do one of the following:

•      Do not apply a filter OR

•      Use either a Spreadsheet or a Tree View roll-up and manually define a basic filter (not CAML-based, not created with the Filter Builder).

How does a list have to be set up in order to be returned by the web part?

Lists should be created via SharePoint’s default list template, or with a CorasWorks-generated list like Updated Contacts, to be returned within the web part for selection.

Does the list returned have to be named the same as the Web Part (i.e., Document Active Display)?

No, you can name a list anything you want.  However, you must make sure that your list was created with the proper list template, and contains the proper fields.

The response time seems slow. Do you have any suggestions for improvement?

The following suggestions apply to all Active Displays:

•      Do not put more than one Active Display web part on a page. Since Active Displays are processed serially, adding several Active Displays to a page can cause a considerable delay in returning the page to the user, although this depends on the configuration of the web parts.

•      While Active Displays can be set to pull data from an unlimited number of levels, users will experience the best performance if you configure the Active Display to look no more than 6 or 7 levels deep. As the number of levels increases, the number of sites and lists queried also increases exponentially.

•      Limit the number of lists queried.

•      Limit the number of fields returned.

•      If you have no choice but to hit a large number of sites and lists, use the Filter Builder to filter the list before the data is returned. The Filter Builder converts all filter to Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML), an XML-based language used in SharePoint. Pre-filtering performed through CAML reduces the number of list items received by the Active Display. The Filter Builder is on the Filtering tab of the administration interface.

In addition, if your Active Display references actions with Lookup columns, the time it may take to retrieve the Lookup values can affect performance. Each time an action with a Lookup is executed, it has to go out and retrieve all of the possible values, which can take time; the data retrieval occurs when the action is executed. This could have an effect on performance, since it relies on another system’s or product’s ability to provide the data. As a result, you may want to limit the number of actions that reference lookup columns that are available via a single Active Display

Some of my users cannot see the actions I made available on an Active Display.

The Active Display will only display the actions from the action libraries to which the user has at least Read access. If the user does not have at least Read access to a particular action library, those actions will not be displayed to that user.

One of the actions I made available on an Active Display always fails.

The action may not be compatible with the schemas of both the source lists included in the Active Display and the destination list. For example, if you are working with an event Active Display, you do not want to select an action that updates the status of a task (or any action that references a column that does not exist in the affected list).

If you enable an incompatible action for the Active Display and a user selects that action, it will always fail. You need to be sure that the columns that are populated or updated exist in both the source list and the destination list. Naming your action definitions clearly goes a long way toward avoiding this potential problem.

Why are some of the properties on the Sites & Lists tab grayed out?

When Central Configuration is enabled, some of the properties that are usually managed via the Sites & Lists tab are managed instead by the entries in the Central Configuration List. As a result, those properties will be grayed out (unavailable).

I went to the Columns tab to select the columns I want to include in my Active Display. Why don’t I see those columns in the Columns for Other Options part of the tab? I want to be able to filter and search on them.

All of the columns that you select for display on the Columns tab are automatically made available for filtering, searching, grouping, and sorting. The Columns for Other Options section of the tab is strictly used to select the columns that you do not want to include in the Active Display, but still want to be able to use for filters, etc.

I’m trying to add a total to an Active Display, but I can’t get it to format the way I want it to. Why not?

It may be because you are trying to total a type of column that doesn’t support totaling. Lookup, calculated, choice, and text columns cannot be totaled; only the Count function is supported. And the Count function does not provide any formatting options.

My Active Display includes a calculated column that I want to total, but the only option I see once I select that column is Count. Why?

For this release, calculated, lookup, choice, and text columns cannot be totaled. Only the Count function is available.

 

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