While learning more about SharePoint I wanted to figure out how the databases are set up for web applications and site collections. While digging into this, I noticed a few things that can be slightly confusing. When creating a web application you can specify the database you want the web application to use and all is well. Then, when creating a site collection within that web application you are no longer allowed to pick a database. By default, the site collection will use the same databases that are available for the parent web application. At this point I started asking myself some questions, what happens if your web application has multiple content databases associated with it? How do you know which database your site collection is being stored into?

I think many would agree with me that one of the best things to ever happen to SharePoint 2007 in terms of an improved user experience was Christophe’s EasyTabs over at Path To SharePoint.  This script turned several web parts that were stacked on top of each other into a much more elegant tabbed view.

And there was much rejoicing.

Christophe updated this script to work for SharePoint 2010 as well. I know countless people who have used it with great success.  However, recently I needed to use EasyTabs for a SharePoint 2013 site and discovered that there was not a 2013 version and the 2010 version did not appear to work. So, what’s a jQuery hack to do but write my own solution? Although not quite as eloquent as Christophe’s solution, it gets the job done. The remainder of this blog walks you through what I did and how you can do it as well.

To this day, my most popular blog posts continue to be my posts on how to set up a parent/child list relationship in SharePoint. These blog posts show you how to automatically set the ID of a Lookup field for a “child” list for different versions of SharePoint using various methods:

• Creating a SharePoint List Parent / Child Relationship - Out of the Box (yes, I know the videos are dead on this one. The VIDEO REMIX post is better anyway)
• Passing Multiple Query String Variables Using SPD – Follow Up on Creating Parent / Child List Relationships
• Creating a SharePoint List Parent/Child Relationship – VIDEO REMIX
• Creating A SharePoint Parent/Child List Relationship– SharePoint 2010 Edition
• Creating a SharePoint Parent/Child List Relationship–No SPD Version
• Creating a Parent/Child List Relationship in SharePoint 2013

As helpful as many have found these solutions, they only worked for lists and not for document libraries.

I am beginning to believe that the Distributed Cache Service in SharePoint Server 2013 will replace the User Profile Service in SharePoint 2010 as the service most hated by SharePoint administrators.

Last week, when working with a test farm on virtual machines, I encountered a problem starting the Distributed Cache Service on a farm member. Since I needed to modify the server architecture to test moving services anyway, I just left the service stopped and ran the configuration wizard to remove the server from the farm. BAD MISTAKE!

Hello, I’m Lane Letson, Marketing Coordinator for Summit 7 Systems. My largest pet project since joining this group of solution adventures was to design a website that combined beauty + function for a complete digital snapshot of our company.

After many weeks of planning and design refreshes, we are excited to launch an all new version of the website that delivers a better experience on every device – from phones to tablets to desktops and more.

Clear navigation of our service and solution offerings, easy registration for upcoming events, innovative thinking in our blogs and the latest information are now available from www.summit7systems.com. Visit our site to connect, discover and explore!

We have expanded on community! We enhanced features that allow subscribing to our events calendar, following our innovative consultants and real-time partner twitter feeds directly on our site! We have also launched a YouTube Channel featuring videos from our events, partners, and webinars to share our passions.

We aren’t finished yet! While we may have launched our new design, we would love to hear your feedback. After all, we created this experience for YOU!

Super quick blog post for you guys. It struck me today the amount of times I have to go to an old script to copy and paste out my script references because I’m too lazy to type them out.

So, here are two scripts that you can drop into SharePoint as a starting point. The first one will get you ready to use SPServices and the second script is for using jQuery and the JavaScript Client Side Object Model (CSOM).

Both scripts reference jQuery from a CDN, so if you have your scripts stored somewhere else be sure to update that.