Muhimbi's SharePoint Blog

Using Muhimbi’s PDF Converter with Office 2010

2010-02-24T15:53:00.001Z

Earlier today we released a new version of our popular PDF Converter for SharePoint. One of the key changes in this version is that it fully supports Office 2010 file formats, including all new formatting features such as Excel 2010 Sparklines.

Full installation details are provided in Appendix – Office 2010 Installation of the Administration Guide, however one detail is so essential that we feel we have to repeat it in this blog post. After all, who reads boring documentation anyway?

The single most important thing to take away from this post is that no matter what CPU architecture you deploy the PDF Converter on, if you plan to use Office 2010 to carry out the conversions then you should always install the 32 bit version of Office 2010.

Even though the Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint is a hybrid 32 / 64 bit application, the 64 bit version of Office will not work in combination with our software. Even if it did, it would provide little to no benefit.

For more details about the differences between the 32 and 64 bit versions of Office, including Microsoft’s recommendation to run the 32-bit version of Office 2010 on 64 bit hardware, read this article on Microsoft’s Office 2010 blog.

Use SharePoint Workflows to inject JavaScript into PDFs and print the ‘open date’

2010-02-24T14:29:00.001Z

Ah, those pesky customers of ours, always looking for some niche functionality that is impossible to include in a generic product. However, using the Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint we can achieve almost anything we can think of…..almost.

Previously I described how to configure PDF Security settings from a SharePoint workflow and how to automatically watermark PDF files from a workflow. This time I’ll show how to add JavaScript to any PDF file to automatically print the current date (the date the PDF was opened) on every page. In essence this adds a print date without modifying the PDF file every day to include the current date.

A quick introduction for those not familiar with the product: The Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint allows custom C# or VB.NET code to be embedded in SharePoint Designer Workflows without the need to resort to complex Visual Studio based workflows, the development of bespoke Workflow Activities or long development cycles.

The solution presented below executes a workflow whenever a PDF file is added or updated. It iterates over all pages and inserts a form field on each page. Some client side JavaScript is then added to the PDF file that iterates over all newly added fields to insert the current date every time the PDF file is opened.

As the code is well documented it is easy to make further changes and customisations, e.g. change the formatting of the date or position of the label. Note that this has only been tested with a recent version of Adobe Acrobat reader. If you use a different PDF viewer your mileage may vary.

Create the workflow as follows:

Download and install the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint.
Download and install the Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint.
Note that you need version 3.2.0.20 or newer, older versions do not allow JavaScript to be inserted.
Download this article’s source code.
We need to be able to access functionality in the Muhimbi.SharePoint.DocumentConverter.PDF and System.Drawing assemblies. Add these references to the relevant Web Application using the Workflow Power Pack Central Administration screens as described in the Administration Guide. Make sure to place each reference on a new line.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with the Shared Documents library, tick the boxes next to both ‘Automatically start….’ options and proceed to the next screen.
We only want to act on files of type PDF. Although we could have put this validation in the code, in this example we use a workflow condition for it so add a Compare Any Data Source condition and:

a. Click on the first value followed by the display data binding (fx) button.
b. Select Current Item as the Source and select File Type in the Field. Click the OK button to continue.
d. Click on the second value and enter pdf.
Click the Actions button and insert the Execute Custom Code action.
Optionally click parameter 1 and enter a relative or absolute destination path. Leave the parameter empty to save the modified file on top of the existing PDF file. For details about how paths are handled, see this post and search for the words ‘this url’.

Insert the C# based code embedded in step #3’s download (also listed below) by clicking this code.

/*********************************************************************************************

                        Muhimbi PDF Converter - JavaScript Watermarking

              Copyright 2010, Muhimbi Ltd - www.muhimbi.com - All rights reserved

 The following code shows a simple way of adding JavaScript to existing PDF Files. It adds

 the current date to each page in the document in order to simulate a 'print date' that is

 always up to date without the need to modify the PDF file. The code is automatically executed

 when the document is opened in the Adobe Acrobat Viewer.

 Error and permission checking as well as other minor features have been omitted for the sake

 of brevity and clarity.

 Ideally PDF Conversion, applying security and watermarking is executed in the same step, see

 http://www.muhimbi.com/blog/2010/01/configure-pdf-security-from-sharepoint.html

 This code requires Muhimbi’s PDF Converter and Workflow Power Pack to be installed.

*********************************************************************************************/

using System.Drawing;

using System.IO;

using Syncfusion.Pdf;

using Syncfusion.Pdf.Parsing;

using Syncfusion.Pdf.Graphics;

using Syncfusion.Pdf.Interactive;

using Muhimbi.SharePoint.DocumentConverter.PDF;

SPFile spSourceDocument = MyWorkflow.Item.File;

string destinationFileName = spSourceDocument.Name;

string destinationFolderName = MyWorkflow.Parameter1 as string;

// ** Load the document

PdfLoadedDocument sourceDocument = new PdfLoadedDocument(spSourceDocument.OpenBinary());

PdfDocument destinationDocument = new PdfDocument();

// ** Copy all pages from the source document into the destination document

// ** so we can add JavaScript actions.

destinationDocument.ImportPageRange(sourceDocument, 0, sourceDocument.Pages.Count - 1);

sourceDocument.Dispose();

// ** Iterate over all pages and add a form element

for (int i = 0; i < destinationDocument.Pages.Count; i++)

    PdfPage destinationPage = destinationDocument.Pages[i];

    // ** Create a new field using a unique name

    PdfTextBoxField field = new PdfTextBoxField(destinationPage, "_M_PrintDateField_" + i);

    // ** Center the field

    const int BOX_WIDTH = 200;

    int boxLeft = (int)((destinationPage.Size.Width - BOX_WIDTH) / 2);

    field.Bounds = new RectangleF(boxLeft, 20, BOX_WIDTH, 20);

    // ** Format the field

    PdfFont font = new PdfStandardFont(PdfFontFamily.Helvetica, 12f);

    field.Font = font;

    field.BorderColor = new PdfColor(Color.White);

    field.BackColor = new PdfColor(Color.White);

    field.ReadOnly = true;

    field.TextAlignment = PdfTextAlignment.Center;

    destinationDocument.Form.Fields.Add(field);

// ** Create a client side script that iterates over all fields and populates the date

string jscript = @"

        var pages = " + destinationDocument.Pages.Count + @";

        var today = util.printd('dd-mm-yyyy', new Date());

        for(var i=0; i<pages; i++)

            var field = this.getField('_M_PrintDateField_' + i);

            field.value = 'Today is: ' + today;

";

// ** Attach the script to the Document Open event.

PdfJavaScriptAction jsAction = new PdfJavaScriptAction(jscript);

destinationDocument.Actions.AfterOpen = jsAction;

// ** Construct the path and file to write the watermarked PDF file to.

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(destinationFolderName) == true)

    destinationFolderName = spSourceDocument.ParentFolder.Url;

SPFolder destinationFolder = Utility.GetSPFolder(destinationFolderName, MyWorkflow.Web);

string destinationFilePath = string.Format("{0}/{1}", destinationFolder.Url,

                                           destinationFileName);

SPWeb destinationWeb = destinationFolder.ParentWeb;

SPFile spDestinationFile = destinationWeb.GetFile(destinationFilePath);

// ** If a document library requires manual checkout and the file is not checked out, then

// ** check the file out before uploading.

if (spDestinationFile.Exists && spDestinationFile.Item.ParentList.ForceCheckout &&

    spDestinationFile.CheckOutStatus == SPFile.SPCheckOutStatus.None)

    spDestinationFile.CheckOut();

// ** Add the file to the site including the meta data

using (MemoryStream watermarkedFile = new MemoryStream())

    destinationDocument.Save(watermarkedFile);

    spDestinationFile = destinationWeb.Files.Add(destinationFilePath, watermarkedFile,

                                                 spSourceDocument.Item.Properties, true);

// ** Check the file back in if this script was responsible for checking it out.

if (spDestinationFile.Item.ParentList.ForceCheckout == true)

    spDestinationFile.CheckIn("Auto check-in after PDF watermarking.");

Click the Actions button, select Log to History List, click this message and enter File watermarked.
Close the Workflow Designer.
Update an existing PDF or add a new PDF file to your library to trigger the workflow and apply the JavaScript.

Naturally this is just a simple example. Feel free to play around with the code, change which parameters are passed into the workflow, or add different JavaScript. Note that you may want to add a check to the code to check if the JavaScript / fields have previously been added, otherwise duplicate form fields may be added every time the PDF is updated.

Adobe’s JavaScript for Acrobat reference can be found here.

PDF Converter for SharePoint 3.2 – With new support for Office 2010

2010-02-24T11:02:00.001Z

We are very excited to announce the new version of the Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint. The main change in this version is support for Office 2010 based converters and file formats.

We are quite surprised by the number of customers asking for Office 2010 support, especially considering that at the time of writing it is still in beta. On the other hand, it appears to be very stable and particularly the improvements in converting InfoPath forms to PDF format make it worth considering.

For those not familiar with the product, the PDF Converter for SharePoint is a lightweight solution that allows end-users to convert common document types to PDF format from within SharePoint without the need to install any client side software or Adobe Acrobat. It integrates at a deep level with SharePoint and leverages facilities such as the Audit log, localisation, security and tracing. It runs on both WSS 3 as well as MOSS and is available in English, German, Dutch, French and Japanese. For detailed information check out the product page.

Convert files using the User Interface or an automated Workflow

The main changes in version 3.2 are as follows:

778	New: Support for Office 2010 has been added.
768	New: For InfoPath conversions, disabling of external data sources and embedded code has been made optional.

For more information check out the following resources:

As always, feel free to contact us using Twitter, our Blog, regular email or subscribe to our newsletter.

Download your free trial here (4MB).
.

SharePoint 2010 Beta – No longer possible to keep indexes on-line while rebuilding them

2010-02-22T11:50:00.001Z

Just a quick note to make sure that anyone typing this error message into a search engine will find this post.

Due to a change in the SharePoint 2010 AllDocVersions table it is no longer possible to rebuild indexes as part of a SQL 2008 maintenance plan and keep the indexes on-line at the same time.

The reason behind this is that the MetaInfo field is no longer of type Image. It is now of type tCompressedBinary:varbinary(MAX).

If you get the error listed below then make sure you open the Rebuild Index Task in your SQL Maintenance plan and disable the ‘Keep index online while reindexing’ option.

If you don’t then you’ll get the following error:

Executing the query "ALTER INDEX [AllDocVersions_PK] ON [dbo].[AllDocVe..." failed with the following error: "An online operation cannot be performed for index 'AllDocVersions_PK' because the index contains column 'MetaInfo' of data type text, ntext, image, varchar(max), nvarchar(max), varbinary(max), xml, or large CLR type. For a non-clustered index, the column could be an include column of the index. For a clustered index, the column could be any column of the table. If DROP_EXISTING is used, the column could be part of a new or old index. The operation must be performed offline.". Possible failure reasons: Problems with the query, "ResultSet" property not set correctly, parameters not set correctly, or connection not established correctly.

If you use one of the default maintenance plans then this error happens before the Backup step. As a result your databases will not be backed up.

Create Shortened (‘TinyURL’) links from your SharePoint Workflow – Part 2

2010-02-18T13:22:00.001Z

Not too long ago we wrote about how to create a Short URL from a SharePoint workflow using the Muhimbi URL Shortener (MuSH) in combination with our Workflow Power Pack. The response from our customers has been so positive that we decided to ship a Workflow Action with the new version of MuSH.

For those not familiar with the product, the Muhimbi URL Shortener for SharePoint, aka MuSH, can be used to shorten URLs for typical web applications and SharePoint in particular. It integrates tightly with both WSS and MOSS and allows short URLs to be created directly from a list item’s context menu, workflows and web services. For details see the original product announcement.

Creating short URLs from a workflow can be very useful. For example creating a short URL named after data in an InfoPath form or create a short URL for a deeply nested folder. In the example below we create a short URL that always points to the latest entry in the announcement list. Not sure if this is useful, but it illustrates the power of this facility.

Create the workflow as follows:

Download and install the Muhimbi URL Shortener for SharePoint.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow Definition screen associate the workflow with the Announcements list, tick the box next to ‘Automatically start this workflow when a new item is created’ and proceed to the next screen.
From the Actions Menu select Create Short URL, you may need to click More Actions first.
The following Workflow Sentence is inserted:
To auto generate the short URL, leave the optional short name empty, but in our case we always want to give it the same name, so enter Announce.
Click this ID / address, click the Workflow Lookup button and select Current Item as the Source and ID as the field.
Click Document / Display Form and select Document (when used in a Document Library) or Display Form showing the item’s properties. As we are not dealing with a Document Library, it doesn’t matter what is selected.
Click Overwrite / Return null and select the Overwrite as we always want to write the latest announcement using the same short name. (Return Null will return null in the output variable, which can then be tested for and action can be taken accordingly.)
Click Variable: this variable and specify the variable the Short URL will be stored in. In this example name it shortURL.
Add a Log To History List Action and specify the name of the workflow variable the Short URL has been stored in using the Workflow Lookup dialog box.

Close the workflow and create a new Announcement. When the workflow has finished, click the completed link to see the output. Click the generated URL to link to the latest announcement.

Create another Announcement, the Short URL should now link to the latest announcement.

New release of MuSH – Workflow Enabled ‘TinyURL’ for SharePoint v2

2010-02-16T14:30:00.001Z

Live never stops at Muhimbi. It has only been 7 days since we announced a new version of the Workflow Power Pack and here we are again with the brand new ‘2.0’ version of our URL Shortener for SharePoint. This version adds support for generating short URLs from workflows, manually specifying short URL names, new languages as well as some other new features and fixes. For full details see the table below.

The main changes and improvements are as follows:

562	New: Allow users to specify their own Short URL.
556	New: Allow users to specify if they want the short URL to point to the Document rather than the Display Form.
760	New: Allow the URL Shortener to be called from any page using SharePoint’s Personal Action’s menu.
561	New: Allow the URL Shortener to be invoked from a SharePoint Designer Workflow.
735	Fixed: Make sure that the same Short URL is returned if a long URL has been shortened before.
655	New: Add Support for Simplified Chinese in the user interface.

For more information check out the:

As always, feel free to contact us using Twitter, our Blog or regular email or subscribe to our newsletter.

Download your free trial here (1MB).

SharePoint Workflow Power Pack User Guide – Creating custom methods

2010-02-09T14:17:00.001Z

In part 4 of our series of User Guide related blog postings for the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint we show how to create your own methods in a WPP script in order to keep the code organised and easy to maintain.

A quick introduction In case you are not familiar with the product: The Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint allows custom C# or VB.NET code to be embedded in SharePoint Designer Workflows without the need to resort to complex Visual Studio based workflows, the development of bespoke Workflow Activities or long development cycles.

The following Blog postings are part of this User Guide series:

Language Features: Discusses the script like syntax, the generic workflow action and condition, passing parameters, returning values from a workflow and using the MyWorkflow property.
Embedding .net code in a Workflow Condition: Provides a number of examples of how to use the Evaluate Custom Code condition to carry out basic as well as complex conditional tasks.
Embedding .net code in a Workflow Action: Contains a number of examples of how to use the Execute Custom Code to basically carry out any action you can think of in a SharePoint Designer Workflow.
Creating Custom Methods (this article): Shows how to create your own methods in your scripts in order to keep the code organised and easy to maintain.

Due to its scripting like approach, the Workflow Power Pack does not allow regular .NET methods to be created. However, by cleverly using delegates you can create your own reusable pieces of code.

To facilitate this, the following delegates can be used in addition to the normal delegates available in the .net framework. Note that this only works for C# as VB.net does not allow anonymous methods to be created.

delegate void WorkflowMethod(params object[] parameters);

delegate object WorkflowFunction(params object[] parameters);

delegate void WorkflowMethod<ParameterType>(params ParameterType[] parameters);

delegate ReturnType WorkflowFunction<ParameterType, ReturnType>(params ParameterType[] parameters);

There is no need to add these delegates to your WPP Code, they are added automatically.

Delegate name	Description
WorkflowMethod	Method with a void return type. Accepts any number of Object based parameters that can be accessed from the delegate body using the parameters array. Parameters may need to be cast to the correct type before they can be used.
WorkflowFunction	Method using a return type of Object. Accepts any number of Object based parameters that can be accessed from the delegate body using the parameters array. Parameters may need to be cast to the correct type before they can be used.
WorkflowMethod (Using generics)	Generics based version that allows strongly typed parameters to be passed.
WorkflowFunction (Using generics)	Generics based version that allows strongly typed parameters to be passed and returned

The example provided below creates a generic Debug method to concatenate information to a string. This string is then returned as the workflow’s ReturnValue, from where it can be written to the Workflow History.

string debugString = String.Empty;

WorkflowMethod<string> Debug = delegate(string[] parameters)

    debugString += parameters[0] + "\r\n";

};

WorkflowFunction Calculate = delegate(object[] parameters)

    return (int)parameters[0] + (int)parameters[1];

};

WorkflowFunction<int, string> Calculate2 = delegate(

                               int[] parameters)

    return (parameters[0] + parameters[1]).ToString();

};

Debug("Hello");

Debug("World");

Debug(Calculate(1, 2).ToString());

Debug(Calculate2(3, 4));

MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = debugString;

Workflow Power Pack 1.1 - Embed C#/VB code in SharePoint Designer Workflows

2010-02-09T11:25:00.001Z

I can’t believe it has only been 6 weeks since we launched the Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint. We are getting great feedback from our customers, who seem to universally love the product. The support call from one frustrated SharePoint Designer workflow developer who was almost in tears stood out particularly.

The version released today adds support for the number one user request, which is the ability to add your own custom methods to the code to allow some degree of usability and reduce the size of scripts. Read this post for more details about how to use this new functionality.

We have been working very hard to write as many blog posts as possible to provide examples of what can be achieved using the product as well as how to integrate the WPP with our other products such as the PDF Converter and URL Shortener. Have a look at the following posts:

Embed C# code directly into a SharePoint Designer workflow

The main changes in version 1.1 are as follows:

743	Add Support for Custom methods using Delegates (See details in User Guide)
763	Trial version causes an error when used after a Pause For Duration activity.

For more information check out the following resources:

As always, feel free to contact us using Twitter, our Blog, regular email or subscribe to our newsletter.

Download your free trial here (1MB).

Tuning SharePoint’s workflow engine

2010-02-04T11:36:00.001Z

As most of our products can be used from a SharePoint workflow, it is perhaps useful to know how to tweak SharePoint’s workflow engine for high-load or other specific scenarios.

This article explains in detail what can be tuned and how it can be tuned. If you are in a rush then you can skip over the first 20%.

In summary:

Workflow Throttle: Controls how many workflows can be processing at any one time on the entire server farm. This setting does not control how many workflows can be "In Progress" concurrently, but rather how many can be actively using the processor. When this number is exceeded, workflow instances that are started and events that wake up dehydrated workflows are queued for later processing. The default value is 15. This setting is per farm, so the number of front-end Web servers is irrelevant

stsadm -o setproperty -pn workflow-eventdelivery-throttle -pv "25"
Workflow Batch Size: Workflows, by their very nature, do not execute in a nonstop, linear fashion. Instead, they run for a little while, pause, run some more, and then pause again, continuing in this manner until the process is complete. Although an outside observer or a developer might disagree, workflows are a collection of batches and the workflow engine is simply a glorified batch controller.

stsadm -o setproperty -pn workitem-eventdelivery-batchsize -pv "125"
Workflow Timeout: The timeout setting specifies the amount of time (in minutes) in which a workflow timer job must complete before it is considered to have stopped responding and is forced to stop processing. Jobs that time out are returned to the queue to be reprocessed later. The default timeout period is five minutes

stsadm -o setproperty -pn workflow-eventdelivery-timeout -pv "10"
Workflow Timer Interval: The workflow timer interval specifies how often the workflow SPTimer job fires to process pending workflow tasks. This interval also represents the granularity of delay timers within your workflow. If a timer is set to delay for one minute, but the interval timer fires only every five minutes, the workflow delays for five minutes, not one minute

stsadm -o setproperty -pn job-workflow -pv value -url http://myWssServer

For our products you may need to tweak Workflow Timeout for very long running PDF Conversions. Changing the Timer Interval can be useful during development when using Pause Until or Pause For workflow Activities.

Using Google AdWords on Content networks, a click-fraud investigation.

2010-02-02T16:41:00.001Z

The following article is an ‘open Kimono session’ where I discuss some of the internals of my company as well as our marketing program. It is my opinion that we are the victim of click-fraud, however my investigation is not 100% scientific and I have had to make some assumptions based on observations and time constraints. Please draw your own conclusion and consider everyone innocent until proven guilty. The figures, charts and tables presented in this article originate from Google’s own Analytics and AdWords software.

Update: Latest developments and responses from Google can be found at the end of this post.

After witnessing unexpected browsing behaviour from visitors who arrived on our site via a Google AdWords campaign that we ran a year ago for our PDF Converter for SharePoint, I was pretty sure that we were the victim of click-fraud.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of time and detailed figures to back up my suspicions, I decided not to pursue the matter at the time. However, after recently analysing another campaign it became clear that something suspicious is going on. Naturally it is not Google who is committing the fraud, but they are not doing enough to prevent it either.

Note that Google has settled a click-fraud related class action lawsuit in 2006 for $90M, a drop in the ocean compared to their level of revenue. The problems appear to be ongoing, read on for my findings.

What is Google AdWords?

Ever wonder how Google make tens of billions of dollars each year? One word: Advertising! AdWords is the platform that allows customers to specify keywords, bids and budget for displaying adverts next to Google’s search results as well as in-line on any website that is willing to display adverts in exchange for a share in the revenue.

When creating a campaign you can specify where the ads appear:

In Google’s Search Results: Based on the search terms and the keywords specified, relevant adverts are displayed next to and above the search results. The more you are willing to pay, the higher the advert will be displayed, increasing the chances of a user clicking it. Every time an advert is clicked, Google charges the advertiser a fee. As Google’s site is a trusted entity, this way of advertising is relatively fraud proof. In all fairness it appears to work exceptionally well and Muhimbi probably could not survive without it.
On the content network: This is where I suspect the majority of fraud is taking place. Anyone who can host any kind of content, e.g. a blog, can sign up as an affiliate and place Google ads in their content. Every time an advert is clicked on the content network Google charges the advertiser and part of the income is paid to the ‘owner’ of the content.

Although Google is putting a lot of effort in preventing fraud, the engineer in me can think of many ways to abuse the content network program, particularly using cheap labour, proxy servers and spyware like applications to simulate real user clicks.

For more detail read Wikipedia’s definition of the AdWords platform.

Muhimbi’s market and products

What makes this investigation relatively easy is the fact that we serve a niche market. All our products are aimed at corporate IT departments for use in their SharePoint environment. The campaign discussed in this article is for our Workflow Power Pack, a product that allows SharePoint Designer developers to embed C# or VB code into their workflows. A great product, but I believe there is a box shot of our product next to the definition of the word niche.

We are a small, but extremely committed company, which makes it difficult to swallow that our hard earned money appears to be used for funding criminal activity.

Normal, genuine, users

Based on our experience with other campaigns as well as ‘organic visitors’ who visit our site via external links or regular Google searches, our normal audience has the following characteristics:

When we send a newsletter to these users, the email rarely bounces.
They visit during weekdays. During the weekend our site has 75% less visitors compared to weekdays.
They arrive on our site via Google with relevant keyword searches or via links from external sites that are relevant to our niche.
They browse around before going to the download page. Only 41% go from the landing page directly to the download page.
Roughly half of interested visitors contact our support / sales department at some stage for further information.

Regular visits by day of the week. Guess which data points represent the weekend.

Evil users

The usage pattern of these alleged fraudulent users is completely different:

A large proportion of newsletters sent to these users bounce.
They visit every day of the week including the weekend.
They arrive on our site via questionable, unrelated sites. More about this later.
75% of the users go directly to the download page from the landing page without getting any further information about the product.
None get in contact with our support / sales department to request any kind of information. I would like to think the information on the site is crystal clear, however this does not match the pattern we see from other products and campaigns.
They spend an average of 1 minute on the site. I am not sure if this is the minimum that Google Analytics reports, but these people are clearly ‘very committed’.

Visits by day of the week for pages related to this particular campaign. No weekend dips, clearly hard workers.

So why do these alleged fraudulent users go through the effort of downloading our software and registering for newsletters after clicking the advertisement, which is when they make their money? The reason behind this is that many Google campaigns as well as marketing professionals measure the success of their campaign based on conversions. For example:

A user enters the site via an AdWords campaign and downloads the software. This is considered a conversion and a sign of a campaign being successful. The marketing executive will get a pat on the back from the CEO and everyone is happy (initially).
A user enters the site via an AdWords campaign and subscribes to a newsletter. This is considered a conversion as well resulting in CEO –> pats marketing on back–> Happy –> time expires –> Sad –> Fired –> Divorce –> Death (See the pain these people are causing!)

Clever marketing people and, if configured that way Google AdWords, measure conversions and allocate more budget to sites that generate these conversions. A good reason for fraudsters to simulate some activity after clicking an advertisement.

Which sites are the worst offenders?

It should come as no surprise that sites that allow anonymous users to host their own content and insert Google advertisements are the worst offenders as it is almost impossible to trace these people. From a geographic perspective it appears that Chinese web sites are the worst, but many other countries are just as bad.

Our advert has been displayed 2.5 million times on 767 sites over the course of one month. 611 different sites have referred at least one visitor. Out of those sites I consider about 60 sites relevant in the loosest sense of the word (Intentionally or not, eggheadcafe.com for example is legit although until recently very mischievous in the way they presented and positioned their advertisements to make them look like clickable answers to questions. They still do it on some threads, but not as bad as it used to be).

76 sites had an amazing 100% click through ratio, 213 with a CTR of more than 20%, 345 with more than 10% and 450 with more than 1% (which is still an amazing rate considering mail.google.com has a 0.02% CTR).

Sites such as divxphoto.com (domain for sale) I consider to be irrelevant as the domain is for sale and doesn’t actually display any advertisements(!!!!!) Most of the other sites on the list can be categorised as domain for sale, dodgy software download site, driver download site or rubbish content aggregation site.

Listed below are the top 15 sites by highest number of advertising clicks.

Domain	Clicks	Impr.	CTR
thaimanga.net	249	485640	0.05%	Manga comics, not relevant to our advert.
softpedia.com	223	158636	0.14%	Download site, not relevant to our advert.
incoto.com	178	192949	0.09%	Some Chinese site
webs.com	159	19109	0.83%	Create your own website service, which makes it easy to host dodgy content.
conduit.com	139	7221	1.92%	Browser toolbar company. God knows what is going on here.
mail.google.com	74	399955	0.02%	Wow, a legit one
eggheadcafe.com	53	109068	0.05%	Legit, but sometimes misleading i.m.o.
csdn.net	50	146830	0.03%	Chinese programming site, maybe legit, probably not.
gyanii.com	48	7481	0.64%	Software download site, looks rubbish and full of advertisements.
blogspot.com	41	13915	0.29%	Host your own content. Partly legit.
csharpfr.com	38	12915	0.29%	French C# site, probably legit.
pin5i.com	34	15196	0.22%	Chinese programming site. Could be legit or just an aggregator. My Chinese isn’t what it used to be.
dotnet-news.com	33	2806	1.18%	Another French .net site related to csharpfr.com. Possibly legit, but I wonder why they are generating so many clicks

Green: Most likely legit - Amber: Likely to be illegitimate - Red: Almost certainly illegitimate

Listed below are the top 15 Sites by Click Through Ratio with more than 25 impressions (otherwise the table would contain 76 sites with a 100% CTR after a single impression, which is rather useless).

Domain	Clicks	Impr.	CTR
9mine.com	9	34	26.47%	Free games, not relevant to our advert.
hbrsd.com	19	87	21.84%	Domain for sale, no ads. Who knows where the clicks came from.
5dmail.net	6	36	16.67%	Chinese site, could be legit, could be aggregator.
boxsoftware.net	5	37	13.51%	Spanish software download site
meiying.com	6	48	12.50%	Dodgy site to display just SharePoint related ads without any content.
myalbums.tk	18	160	11.25%	Dodgy site to display just MS Development related ads without any content.
codehaus.org	6	54	11.11%	Some open source site. Could be legit, but not relevant so doesn't explain the high CTR.
micorcsolft.com.cn	8	76	10.53%	Site doesn't even exist.
douziwang.cn	4	40	10.00%	Similar to meiying.com. Dodgy site to just display ads for MS Dev tools
paramegsoft.com	3	30	10.00%	Arabic online games, not relevant to our advert.
kidwaresoftware.com	4	46	8.70%	Possibly legit site, but not relevant so doesn't explain the high CTR
thaiboxsoftware.com	3	38	7.89%	Thai software download site. Glad to see we are so popular in Thailand
netcsharp.cn	3	40	7.50%	Malware site as reported by Google Chrome, yet Google allow advertisements.
download3k.com	3	45	6.67%	Another software download site
technos-sources.com	2	30	6.67%	French tech site. Could be legit, could be aggregator. Doesn't explain the high CTR.

Green: Most likely legit - Amber: Likely to be illegitimate - Red: Almost certainly illegitimate

I realise that detecting and solving click fraud is much more difficult than actually causing it, especially without access to key information such as site demographics, visitor behaviour, click streams and conversion data. On the other hand, as Google Analytics tracks the Muhimbi Site, they actually have most of this data. I will present my findings to Google and give them a chance to respond and hopefully improve the situation for everyone. Perhaps some kind of validation system or list of ‘trusted sites’ could be created by Google.

As a Google shareholder I wonder how much of Google’s income actually comes from this kind of alleged criminal activity. According to Google: “…we manage the problem of invalid clicks very well. We have a large team of expert engineers and analysts devoted to it. By far, most invalid clicks are caught by our automatic filters and discarded *before* they reach an advertiser’s bill. And for the clicks that are not caught in advance, advertisers can notify Google and ask for reimbursement.”

This situation cannot continue any longer. I am naturally upset that my company appears to be the victim of fraud, but what about the thousands (millions?) of other advertisers who do not have the knowledge or resources to detect fraud? It should not be up to the customers to research and report fraud, Google should step up its game and clean up its act, no matter how difficult or painful it is.

So, is Google guilty of fraud? I seriously doubt it, however they appear to be profiteering from other people’s criminal activity in a manner not dissimilar to the way illegal media sharing sites are behaving. “We are not doing anything illegal, we can’t help it that other people upload illegal movies / music / software / <insert excuse here> to our site even though it has clearly been designed for this purpose.”

… Not good enough. To be continued.

02-Feb-2010 - Update 1: We are clearly not the only party experiencing click-fraud. For more information visit the links below:

Report Google click-fraud here.

18-Feb-2010 - Update 2: Google have responded and claim that only a small percentage of the clicks are fraudulent. The remaining clicks are all part of normal user activity. It appears their response is largely automated so I have replied back asking for further details as I don’t accept their findings. I find it astonishing how much they downplay the issue of click-fraud. Apparently it is up to me to manually exclude domains that I consider not to be relevant. This is just laughable.

19-Feb-2010 – Update 3:

Typos may earn Google $500m a year – NewScientist, ZDNet, Harvard University Research
Google Sued in Domainer Lawsuit--Vulcan Golf v. Google

01-Mar-2010 – Update 4: Received another reply from Google AdWords support. They have disabled some of the accounts that have caused fraudulent clicks, but they are not allowed to tell which clicks were the fraudulent ones. Apparently it is up to us to police Google’s content network, painstakingly go through all reports, check out each domain and then take Google’s word for it about them taking the appropriate action. In light of my findings, Google’s word is not worth much to me at the moment, even if they have the best of intentions.

Yes Friends, Google AdWords’ Search Partners Includes Parked Domains.

Adding a watermark to a PDF file from a SharePoint Workflow

2010-01-26T12:18:00.001Z

We get a great amount of interest from our existing PDF Converter customers for the Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint. I am not really surprised as there is a lot of of synergy between the two.

Last week I described how to configure PDF Security settings from a SharePoint workflow. This time I’ll describe another common request; adding a watermark to a PDF File.

The solution presented below executes a workflow whenever a PDF file is added or updated. As part of the workflow it loads portrait and landscape based watermarks and applies the relevant template to each page of the document. The workflow author can specify if the watermark goes in the foreground or the background, the SharePoint location of the watermarks as well as the level of transparency. As the code is well documented it is easy to make further changes and customisations, e.g. the PDF file that needs to be watermarked may not be the file the workflow is acting on.

Create the workflow as follows:

Download and install the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint.
Download and install the Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint.
Note that you need version 3.1.2.18 or newer, older versions do not allow watermarking.
Download this article’s source code and sample watermarks.
We need to be able to access functionality in the Muhimbi.SharePoint.DocumentConverter.PDF and System.Drawing assemblies. Add these references to the relevant Web Application using the Workflow Power Pack Central Administration screens as described in the Administration Guide. Make sure to place each reference on a new line.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with the Shared Documents library, tick the boxes next to both ‘Automatically start….’ options and proceed to the next screen.
We only want to act on files of type PDF. Although we could have put this validation in the code, in this example we use a workflow condition for it so add a Compare Any Data Source condition and:

a. Click on the first value followed by the display data binding (fx) button.
b. Select Current Item as the Source and select File Type in the Field. Click the OK button to continue.
d. Click on the second value and enter pdf.
Click the Actions button and insert the Execute Custom Code action.
Optionally click parameter 1 and enter a relative or absolute destination path. Leave the parameter empty to save the watermarked file on top of the existing PDF file. For details about how paths are handled, see this post and search for the words ‘this url’.

Insert the C# based code embedded in step #3’s download (also listed below) by clicking this code.

/*********************************************************************************************

                             Muhimbi PDF Converter - Watermarking

              Copyright 2010, Muhimbi Ltd - www.muhimbi.com - All rights reserved

 The following code shows a simple way of adding a watermark to existing PDF Files.

 Error and permission checking as well as other minor features have been omitted for the sake

 of brevity and clarity.

 Ideally PDF Conversion, applying security and watermarking is executed in the same step, see

 http://www.muhimbi.com/blog/2010/01/configure-pdf-security-from-sharepoint.html

 This code requires Muhimbi’s PDF Converter and Workflow Power Pack to be installed.

*********************************************************************************************/

using System.Drawing;

using System.IO;

using Syncfusion.Pdf;

using Syncfusion.Pdf.Parsing;

using Syncfusion.Pdf.Graphics;

using Muhimbi.SharePoint.DocumentConverter.PDF;

SPFile spSourceDocument = MyWorkflow.Item.File;

string destinationFileName = spSourceDocument.Name;

string destinationFolderName = MyWorkflow.Parameter1 as string;

string watermarkDocumentPortraitPath = @"Shared Documents/Watermarks/WatermarkA4Portrait.pdf";

string watermarkDocumentLandscapePath = @"Shared Documents/Watermarks/WatermarkA4Landscape.pdf";

// ** z-order and transparency of the watermark

bool watermarkInBackground = true;

float watermarkTransparancy = 0.25f;

// ** Load the document and watermarks

PdfLoadedDocument sourceDocument = new PdfLoadedDocument(spSourceDocument.OpenBinary());

SPFile spWatermarkDocumentPortrait = MyWorkflow.Web.GetFile(watermarkDocumentPortraitPath);

PdfLoadedDocument watermarkDocumentPortrait = new PdfLoadedDocument(

                                                spWatermarkDocumentPortrait.OpenBinary());

SPFile spWatermarkDocumentLandscape = MyWorkflow.Web.GetFile(watermarkDocumentLandscapePath);

PdfLoadedDocument watermarkDocumentLandscape = new PdfLoadedDocument(

                                                spWatermarkDocumentLandscape.OpenBinary());

// ** Create the PDF Templates

PdfTemplate watermarkTemplatePortrait = watermarkDocumentPortrait.Pages[0].CreateTemplate();

PdfTemplate watermarkTemplateLandscape = watermarkDocumentLandscape.Pages[0].CreateTemplate();

// ** Iterate over all pages and apply watermark

foreach (PdfPageBase page in sourceDocument.Pages)

    // ** Is the current page portrait or landscape?

    PdfTemplate watermarkTemplate = null;

    if (page.Size.Width > page.Size.Height)

        watermarkTemplate = watermarkTemplateLandscape;

    else

        watermarkTemplate = watermarkTemplatePortrait;

    // ** Place watermark behind or in front of text?

    if (watermarkInBackground == true)

        PdfTemplate pageTemplate = page.CreateTemplate();

        page.Layers.Clear();

        PdfGraphics g = page.Graphics;

        g.SetTransparency(watermarkTransparancy);

        g.DrawPdfTemplate(watermarkTemplate, PointF.Empty, page.Size);

        g.SetTransparency(1f);

        g.DrawPdfTemplate(pageTemplate, PointF.Empty, page.Size);

    else

        PdfGraphics g = page.Graphics;

        g.SetTransparency(watermarkTransparancy);

        g.DrawPdfTemplate(watermarkTemplate, PointF.Empty, page.Size);

// ** Construct the path and file to write the watermarked PDF file to.

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(destinationFolderName) == true)

    destinationFolderName = spSourceDocument.ParentFolder.Url;

SPFolder destinationFolder = Utility.GetSPFolder(destinationFolderName, MyWorkflow.Web);

string destinationFilePath = string.Format("{0}/{1}", destinationFolder.Url,

                                           destinationFileName);

SPWeb destinationWeb = destinationFolder.ParentWeb;

SPFile spDestinationFile = destinationWeb.GetFile(destinationFilePath);

// ** If a document library requires manual checkout and the file is not checked out, then

// ** check the file out before uploading.

if (spDestinationFile.Exists && spDestinationFile.Item.ParentList.ForceCheckout &&

    spDestinationFile.CheckOutStatus == SPFile.SPCheckOutStatus.None)

    spDestinationFile.CheckOut();

// ** Add the file to the site including the meta data

using (MemoryStream watermarkedFile = new MemoryStream())

    sourceDocument.Save(watermarkedFile);

    spDestinationFile = destinationWeb.Files.Add(destinationFilePath, watermarkedFile,

                                                 spSourceDocument.Item.Properties, true);

// ** Check the file back in if this script was responsible for checking it out.

if (spDestinationFile.Item.ParentList.ForceCheckout == true)

    spDestinationFile.CheckIn("Auto check-in after PDF watermarking.");

Click the Actions button, select Log to History List, click this message and enter File watermarked.
Close the Workflow Designer.
In the Shared Documents library create a sub folder named Watermarks and copy the 2 watermark files that are part of step #3’s download into it. If the watermarks are named differently or stored in a different location then update the paths in the script accordingly. Note that the sample watermarks are exactly A4 sized but they work fine on differently sized documents.
Update an existing PDF or add a new PDF file to your library to trigger the workflow and apply the watermarks.

Naturally this is just a simple example. Feel free to play around with the code, change which parameters are passed into the workflow, modify where watermarked files are written to or add dynamic text as a watermark. Leave a comment below if you are trying to do anything specific.

How we license our products – Make sure your organisation is compliant

2010-01-22T12:03:00.001Z

Any organisation that deals with computer software, free or otherwise, must be aware of the License Agreement that comes with a software product. How many computers can the software be used on, by how many users and how long is the license valid are only some of the questions that need to be answered.

We have invested quite some time in making our Software License Agreement readable for people without a legal background. However, it is difficult to cover all grounds using plain English.

This post attempts to explain the key elements of our Software Agreement in plain English. Note that this is only a summary and does not replace the actual License Agreement.

The following topics are discussed in this post:

Summary of available licenses
Renewing Licenses / Support licenses
What servers / environments do you need a license for
Licensing requirements for non SharePoint based deployments

Summary of available licenses

We use a graded licensing system to match your budget and exact needs. The following license types are available:

Free evaluation version: If you install the software without a license then you are using the evaluation version. The software is fully functional without any time limits, but an evaluation message will be displayed on most screens and in any generated document. You are not permitted to use any evaluation software in your production environment. Support is provided using any of the means in the Support area on our site.
Web Application License: This license is sold at a considerable discount to allow small organisations with just a single SharePoint server and Web Application to get started with our software. If you have a single SharePoint server then you can use this license on a single Web Application on as many Site Collections as you like.
Web Farm License: If you have more than one server in your SharePoint farm or want to use our software on multiple Web Applications then you may want to consider this license. If you want to use our software on multiple farms or if your farm is spread over multiple geographical locations then you need either a Site or OEM license as described below.
Site License: If you have multiple separate SharePoint Farms, for example when you are a hosting company, then this license may be the best option as it allows the software to be used on an unlimited number of separate SharePoint farms at a single location.
OEM License: If your SharePoint Farm or Farms spreads multiple physical locations, e.g. across a data centre, Disaster recovery site and or local branch offices OR if you want to bundle our Software as part of your own solution then the OEM Subscription is most likely the best option. Please read the details in the Software License Agreement if you want to bundle our software with your own solution. Note that you are not allowed to use our Products to develop derived works that offer similar functionality as the Product or expose the features of the Product for use by an unlicensed third party unless agreed with Muhimbi.
OEM License + Source Code: If you need all the benefits of the OEM License and / or you need access to the source code to make modifications specific to your organisation, then this license type is the best option. Note that we do not provide support for our software once changes have been made to the source code. Please read the details in the Software License Agreement if you want to bundle our software with your own solution. Note that you are not allowed to use our Products to develop derived works that offer similar functionality as the Product or expose the features of the Product for use by an unlicensed third party unless agreed with Muhimbi.

Renewing Licenses / Support licenses

Independent of the type of license purchased, you automatically receive a 1 year support license, which entitles you to free updates and access to our support desk using any of the means listed on the Contact Us page.

After the support license has expired your software will continue to work, but you can no longer download new versions released after the expiry of the license. You can renew your support license for 30% of the current retail price, which is not necessarily the price you originally bought the product for, although they may be the same.

What servers / environments do you need a license for

Some vendors charge extra license fees for Development or Test environments, which - quite frankly - we find a questionable practice. Having said that, some organisations run the same software in multiple environments. The most common environments are summarised below with an explanation about any extra licenses needed.

Development: This environment is commonly used by Software or SharePoint developers to create or update solutions using tools such as Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer. Providing our software is used for development purposes only and not used for any production use then you don’t need a separate license for this environment. Examples of Production use in a Development environment is running our PDF Converter on the Development Team’s SharePoint Server if this server is located in the Development subnet and used for production use, e.g. storing documents for the development projects.
Systems Test: Once development on a software project has finished, the solution is commonly installed and tested in a clean test environment that resembles the Production environment. Providing this environment is not used for Production use, it rarely is, you do not need an extra license.
User Acceptance Test: Once the development team has finished development, the end-users usually test the solution as well to see if it matches the requirements and functions as expected. Some organisations use the Systems Test environment for this, but other organisations have a separate UAT environment. Providing this environment is not used for Production use, it rarely is, you do not need an extra license.
Support: Some organisations run an identical copy of their Production environment in a so called Support environment. Quite often this environment runs very recent data based on backups taken the day before. Support staff can assist users and troubleshoot problems on a relatively up to date copy of the system without impacting the data in the Production system. From a licensing perspective this is a grey area as this environment is sometimes used for Production use. For example, if a Production user requests assistance with the conversion of a PDF file and this conversion is then carried out by a member of the support team in the Support environment and the resulting file is transferred to the user then this is considered Production use and you need a license for this environment.
Staging: Depending on the kind of solutions in place, an organisation or team may need a staging environment. Staging environments are commonly used, but not limited to, content management based solutions to prepare content for an Intranet or public web site. Providing this environment runs on a farm separate from the Production farm you need a license for this environment:
Production: Production environments always need a license.
Disaster Recovery: Many of the larger organisation mirror their production environment in an off-site Disaster Recovery Centre. From a licensing perspective we consider Disaster Recovery Centres to be Production environments, even if disaster never strikes and the environment is never used.

In summary, if you need a license for more than one environment, get a Site License if all servers are based in one physical location. Purchase an OEM License if your servers are spread over multiple locations.

Licensing requirements for non SharePoint based deployments

Our products mainly focus on use from a SharePoint environment. However, some products can also be used from non SharePoint environments as well. For example, our PDF Conversion Service can run as a standalone service and be accessed from any application that supports Web Services.

The licenses are largely the same, with the exception of the Web Application License, which is only available for SharePoint based environments.

Web Farm License: Get this license if you want to access our software from a single solution on an unlimited number of servers located at a single location, using an unlimited number of developers and end-users.
Site License: If you intend to access our software from multiple solutions located on servers at the same site, then get this license.
OEM License: If you want to access our software from servers spread across more than one physical location then get this license.
OEM License + Source Code: If you need all the benefits of the OEM License and / or you need access to the source code to make modifications specific to your organisation, then this license type is the best option. Note that we do not provide support for our software once changes have been made to the source code. Please read the details in the Software License Agreement if you want to bundle our software with your own solution. Note that you are not allowed to use our Products to develop derived works that offer similar functionality as the Product or expose the features of the Product for use by an unlicensed third party unless agreed with Muhimbi.

I realise this post is almost longer than the License Agreement is is trying to explain, but I hope it clarifies our licensing position. If you have any further questions then please check out the following sources or contact us at licensing@muhimbi.com.

PDF Converter for SharePoint 3.1 – With new Visio and improved InfoPath Conversion

2010-01-20T16:10:00.001Z

It has been exactly 2 months since we released a completely overhauled version of our PDF Converter for SharePoint. We are seeing a considerable increase in downloads as well as purchases, which means one thing….. increased customer feedback!

The new version of the software resolves the most urgent issues, removes a number of pain points that should make configuration for certain scenarios a lot easier, improves support for the more complex InfoPath forms and adds support for converting MS-Visio files as well as a number of related vector formats (vsd, vdx, svg, svgz, dwg, dxf).

For those not familiar with the product, the PDF Converter for SharePoint is a lightweight solution (4MB download) that allows end-users to convert common document types to PDF format from within SharePoint without the need to install any client side software or Adobe Acrobat. It integrates at a deep level with SharePoint and leverages facilities such as the Audit log, localisation, security and tracing. It runs on both WSS 3 as well as MOSS and is available in English, German, Dutch, French and Japanese. For detailed information check out the product page as well as the following blog postings:

Convert files using the User Interface or an automated Workflow

The main changes in version 3.1 are as follows:

754	Fixed: InfoPath data files without a shared template location cannot be converted.
751	New: Added support for conversion of Visio and other vector based file types, including AutoCad.
671	Improved: Support for ‘difficult’ InfoPath documents containing Full Trust .net code.
739	Improved: Remove manual configuration steps for systems that store .dotx templates in SharePoint.
740	Improved: Remove manual configuration steps for documents that contain Document Information Panels.
495	Fixed: Using the Browse button to navigate to the root of a renamed document library doesn't work.
289	Fixed: Cannot select folder in Tree picker when the file name is empty.
736	Fixed: Meta data of type ‘Date’ is not copied over correctly for Office 2007 based files.

For more information check out the following resources:

As always, feel free to contact us using Twitter, our Blog, regular email or subscribe to our newsletter.

Download your free trial here (4MB).
.

Configure PDF Security from a SharePoint Workflow

2010-01-15T16:35:00.001Z

Our PDF Converter for SharePoint is getting great reviews, but naturally we cannot please everyone, or at least not yet. One of the requests we get from time to time is to add support for the ability to specify PDF Security settings (Open Password, Owner Password, Block Print, Block Copy etc).

The thing is, our underlying engine and Web Service interface already support this functionality. However, the user interface and workflow action have not yet been updated. In this article we describe how to access this ‘hidden’ functionality from a workflow using the Workflow Power Pack.

The solution presented below automatically converts any updated or newly created files to PDF format and applies the DisablePrint and DisableContentCopy security flags to the file. As the code is well documented it is easy to make further changes and customisations.

Create the workflow as follows:

Download and install the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint.
Download and install the Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint.
We need to be able to access functionality in the Muhimbi.SharePoint.DocumentConverter.PDF, System.ServiceModel and System.Runtime.Serialization assemblies. Add these references to the relevant Web Application using the Workflow Power Pack Central Administration screens as described in the Administration Guide. Make sure to place each reference on a new line.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with the library of your choice, tick the boxes next to both ‘Automatically start….’ options and proceed to the next screen.
To prevent the code from acting on files that are already in PDF format, add a Compare Any Data Source condition and:

a. Click on the first value followed by the display data binding (fx) button.
b. Select Current Item as the Source and select File Type in the Field. Click the OK button to continue.
c. Click equals and change it to not equals.
d. Click on the second value and enter pdf.
Click the Actions button and insert the Execute Custom Code action.
Click parameter 1 and optionally enter a relative or absolute destination path (For details see this post and search for the words ‘this url’). Leave the parameter empty to write the PDF file to the same directory as the source file.

Download the source code or insert the C# based code listed below by clicking this code.

/********************************************************************************************

                                  Muhimbi PDF Converter

              Copyright 2010, Muhimbi Ltd - www.muhimbi.com - All rights reserved

 The following code is a simplification of the code that is normally executed by the Muhimbi

 PDF Converter Workflow Action. Error and permission checking as well as other minor features

 have been omitted for the sake of brevity and clarity.

 This code allows more control over the PDF Conversion process compared to what is possible

 with the Out-Of-The-Box action, for example: PDF Security Options, Use of PDF/A, Quality,

 Enable Macros and the ability to specify a password to open a source file.

 This code requires Muhimbi’s PDF Converter and Workflow Power Pack to be installed.

 For details about the Web Services interface see:

 http://www.muhimbi.com/blog/2009/12/converting-office-files-to-pdf-format.html

********************************************************************************************/

using Muhimbi.SharePoint.DocumentConverter.PDF;

using Muhimbi.SharePoint.DocumentConverter.PDF.WebServiceClient;

using System.Collections;

// ** Set all variables required for the conversion of the file.

SPFile sourceFile = MyWorkflow.Item.File;

// ** Specify an empty string or null to use the same directory as the source file.

// ** Alternatively specify an absolute or relative (to the web) path, e.g.

// ** subsite1/Shared Documents/PDF  or /sites/HumanResources/subsite1/Shared Documents/PDF

string          destinationFolderName   = MyWorkflow.Parameter1 as string;

string          destinationFileName     = Utility.ExtractFileName(sourceFile.Name) + ".pdf";

string          openPassword            = "";

string          ownerPassword           = "A Nice And Strong Password!";

SecurityOptions securityOptions         = SecurityOptions.DisablePrint |

                                          SecurityOptions.DisableContentCopy;

bool            copyMetadata            = true;

// ** Get a reference to the PDF Converter web service.

DocumentConverterServiceClient client   = WebServiceConverterHelper.OpenService();

//** Set the various open options

OpenOptions openOptions                 = new OpenOptions();

openOptions.Password                    = "";

openOptions.OriginalFileName            = sourceFile.Name;

openOptions.FileExtension               = Utility.ExtractFileExtension(sourceFile.Name);

openOptions.AllowMacros                 = MacroSecurityOption.None;

openOptions.RefreshContent              = true;

//** Specify the various security settings

ConversionSettings conversionSettings   = new ConversionSettings();

conversionSettings.Fidelity             = ConversionFidelities.Full;

conversionSettings.Format               = OutputFormat.PDF;

conversionSettings.Quality              = ConversionQuality.OptimizeForPrint;

conversionSettings.Range                = ConversionRange.VisibleDocuments;

conversionSettings.StartPage            = 0;

conversionSettings.EndPage              = 0;

conversionSettings.GenerateBookmarks    = BookmarkGenerationOption.Automatic;

conversionSettings.PDFProfile           = PDFProfile.PDF_1_5;

// ** Specify either an Open or Owner Password in order to activate the security Options

conversionSettings.OpenPassword         = openPassword;

conversionSettings.OwnerPassword        = ownerPassword;

conversionSettings.SecurityOptions      = securityOptions;

// ** Read the content of the source file

byte[] sourceFileArray = sourceFile.OpenBinary();

// ** Carry out the actual conversion to PDF

byte[] convertedFile = client.Convert(sourceFileArray, openOptions, conversionSettings);

// ** Construct the path and file to write the PDF file to.

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(destinationFolderName) == true)

    destinationFolderName = sourceFile.ParentFolder.Url;

SPFolder destinationFolder = Utility.GetSPFolder(destinationFolderName, MyWorkflow.Web);

string destinationFilePath = string.Format("{0}/{1}", destinationFolder.Url,

                                           destinationFileName);

SPWeb destinationWeb = destinationFolder.ParentWeb;

SPFile spDestinationFile = destinationWeb.GetFile(destinationFilePath);

// ** If a document library requires manual checkout and the file is not checked out, then

// ** check the file out before uploading.

if (spDestinationFile.Exists && spDestinationFile.Item.ParentList.ForceCheckout &&

    spDestinationFile.CheckOutStatus == SPFile.SPCheckOutStatus.None)

    spDestinationFile.CheckOut();

// ** Copy metadata, if requested.

if (copyMetadata == true &&

    sourceFile.Name.EndsWith("x", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) == false)

    // ** Pre office 2007 formats (without the trailing x) are treated differently

    // ** from the office 2007 formats when it comes to copying meta data.

    Hashtable metadata = sourceFile.Item.Properties;

    // ** Add the file to the site including the meta data

    spDestinationFile = destinationWeb.Files.Add(destinationFilePath, convertedFile,

                                                 metadata, true);

else if (copyMetadata == true)

    // ** Add the file to the site.

    spDestinationFile = destinationWeb.Files.Add(destinationFilePath,

                                                 convertedFile, null, true);

    // ** Copy the Actual meta data to the newly created file.

    foreach (SPField field in sourceFile.Item.Fields)

        if (field.ReadOnlyField == false && 
            spDestinationFile.Item.Fields.ContainsField(field.InternalName) == true)

            spDestinationFile.Item[field.InternalName] = sourceFile.Item[field.InternalName];

    // ** Update the meta data

    spDestinationFile.Item.Update();

else

    // ** Actively strip all meta data

    Hashtable metadata = new Hashtable(sourceFile.Item.Properties.Count);

    foreach (Object key in sourceFile.Item.Properties.Keys)

        metadata.Add(key, string.Empty);

    // ** Add the file to the site with all meta data stripped

    spDestinationFile = destinationWeb.Files.Add(destinationFilePath, convertedFile,

                                                 metadata, true);

// ** Check the file back in if this script was responsible for checking it out.

if (spDestinationFile.Item.ParentList.ForceCheckout == true)

    spDestinationFile.CheckIn("Auto check-in after PDF Conversion");

Click the Actions button, select Log to History List, click this message and enter File converted to PDF.
Close the Workflow Designer and update or add an item to your library to trigger the workflow.

Naturally this is just a simple example. Feel free to play around with the code, change which parameters are passed into the workflow or modify where converted PDF files are written to.

PDF Converter for SharePoint – The first award is in!

2010-01-11T10:34:00.001Z

Wow, this is a nice Monday morning surprise. When I checked my mailbox this morning there was an email from SharePointReview’s Inna Gordin announcing that the Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint has won the December 2009 Top User Rated Product Award.

So, we are now officially Award Winning, which is great. We’ll aim to keep our products’ quality and degree of innovation at a high level to make sure this is not the last award we’ll win.

Please check out our other products on SharePointReviews.com and leave a rating if you like what you see. We are a small company and it really means a lot to our team.

For the latest news please subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Using SharePoint Infuser on a Publishing Site

2010-01-07T15:02:00.001Z

We are getting some fantastic feedback from users who are using our free SharePoint Infuser tool to inject all kinds of Magic into their SharePoint pages.

However, some users who are using Publishing Sites have reported that the tool is not working for them. This is because the ‘AdditionalPageHead’ delegate control is usually not present in the Master Page of a publishing site.

If you are keen to use Infuser in your Publishing Site then add the following line to your Publishing Site’s master page.

<SharePoint:DelegateControl runat="server" ControlId="AdditionalPageHead" AllowMultipleControls="true"/>

That’s all. Have fun.

Send rich emails with attachments from a SharePoint Designer Workflow

2009-12-29T13:49:00.001Z

One of the most common (sub) tasks executed from a SharePoint workflow is the submission of an email. SharePoint 2007 ships with an Email Workflow Action out of the box, which is unfortunately very limited in its abilities. For example, it is not possible to include attachments, specify the From Address, set the Priority or specify the SMTP server to use.

In this blog post I’ll describe how to send an email from a workflow that automatically includes all files / attachments for the current item from a SharePoint Designer workflow using the Workflow Power Pack.

The solution presented below uses the standard Build Dynamic String Action to create the body of the email. This body is then passed as Parameter 1 to the Execute Custom Code Action. Parameter 2 is used to specify the To Address. This code is a great starting point for further customisation. For more details see the standard .net MailMessage and SmtpClient classes.

Create the workflow as follows:

Download and install the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with the list or library of your choice, tick the boxes next to both ‘Automatically start… ’ items and proceed to the next screen.
Click the Actions button and insert the Build Dynamic String action.
Click dynamic string and enter an HTML based email.
Click variable1 and create a new string based variable named mailMessage.
Click the Actions button and insert the Execute Custom Code action.
Click parameter 1, open the Workflow Lookup dialog and select Source: Workflow Data, Field: mailMessage.
Click parameter 2 end enter the address to send the email to. Naturally this could be a lookup value as well.

Insert the following C# based code by clicking this code.

using System.Net.Mail;

using System.IO;

string smtpServer = MyWorkflow.Site.WebApplication.OutboundMailServiceInstance.Server.Address;

SPListItem item = MyWorkflow.Item;

// ** Get the standard sender address for the Web App.

// ** Feel free to replace with an address of your choice.

string from = MyWorkflow.Site.WebApplication.OutboundMailSenderAddress;

string to = (string) MyWorkflow.Parameter2;

string subject = "New SharePoint Files";

string body = (string) MyWorkflow.Parameter1;

// ** Process any 'workflow variables' that may exist in the body.

body =  Helper.ProcessStringField(body, MyWorkflow.ActivityExecutionContext.Activity, null);

MailMessage message = new MailMessage(from, to, subject, body);

message.IsBodyHtml = true;

message.Priority = MailPriority.Normal;

// ** Add optional CCs and BCCs

//message.Bcc.Add("someone@somewhere.com");

//message.CC.Add("someone@somewhere.com");

// ** Do we need to attach a single file or a list of files attached to a list item?

if (item.File != null)

    // ** Attach the file itself

    Stream attachmentStream = new MemoryStream(item.File.OpenBinary());

    Attachment attachment = new Attachment(attachmentStream, item.File.Name);

    message.Attachments.Add(attachment);

else

    // ** Attach all files that are part of the list item

    foreach (string fileName in item.Attachments)

        SPFile file = item.ParentList.ParentWeb.GetFile(item.Attachments.UrlPrefix + fileName);

        Stream attachmentStream = new MemoryStream(file.OpenBinary());

        Attachment attachment = new Attachment(attachmentStream, file.Name);

        message.Attachments.Add(attachment);

// ** Send the email

SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient(smtpServer);

client.Send(message);

Close the Workflow Designer and add an item to your list or library to trigger the workflow.

The code in this example is a great starting point for making further customisations. You may want to change which parameters are passed in or load the attachments from a different item or even using an HTTP Request. The solution presented in this post also works very well when combined with one of our other postings: Automatically convert files to PDF using an e-mail enabled SharePoint Document Library

Create Shortened (‘TinyURL’) links from your SharePoint Workflow

2009-12-28T17:24:00.001Z

When we released the Muhimbi URL Shortener for SharePoint, we knew that even though it was a great product, we couldn’t please everyone. For example, all generated Short URLs point to list items’ Form View, from where the item can be edited, deleted or opened in an external application. This behaviour is by design, but some customers prefer to have the short URL point directly to the file, e.g. a Generated PDF.

In this article we describe how to generate a short URL from a SharePoint Designer workflow with full control over which view the URL points to using both MuSH and the Workflow Power Pack.

The solution presented below creates a short URL for the current item the workflow is acting on. An optional value can be specified in Parameter 1 to control if the generated URL points to the file or display form using the ‘displayform’ and ‘file’ values.

Create the workflow as follows:

Download and install the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint.
Download and install the Muhimbi URL Shortener for SharePoint.
We need to be able to access functionality in the Muhimbi.SharePoint.URLShortener assembly. Add this reference to the relevant Web Application using the Workflow Power Pack Central Administration screens as described in the Administration Guide.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with the list or library of your choice, tick the box next to ‘Automatically start this workflow when a new item is created’ and proceed to the next screen.
Click the Actions button and insert the Execute Custom Code action.
Click this variable and create a new Workflow Variable named shortURL using string as the type.
Click parameter 1 and enter file or displayform or leave it empty to default to displayform.

Insert the following C# based code by clicking this code.

using Muhimbi.SharePoint.URLShortener;

// ** Where do we want the shortened URL to point to?

string target = MyWorkflow.Parameter1 == null ? "displayform" : (String) MyWorkflow.Parameter1;

string sourceURL = null;

// ** Point the short URL to the file or the file's info form

switch (target.ToLower())

    case "file":

        sourceURL = String.Format("{0}/{1}", MyWorkflow.Web.Url, MyWorkflow.Item.Url);

        break;

    case "displayform":

        sourceURL = String.Format("{0}/{1}?ID={2}",

                                    MyWorkflow.Web.Url,

                                    MyWorkflow.List.Forms[PAGETYPE.PAGE_DISPLAYFORM].Url,

                                    MyWorkflow.Item.ID);

        break;

    default:

        throw new ArgumentException("Unknown target specified, use 'file' or 'displayform'.");

// ** Add a description to the short URL, amend if necessary

string description = "Generated from workflow";

// ** Carry out the shortening process

ShortenedURL shortURL = Muhimbi.SharePoint.URLShortener.URLShortener.CreateURLViaWebService(

                                MyWorkflow.Site.WebApplication.Id, sourceURL, description);

// ** Return the fully qualified URL back to the workflow

MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = shortURL.GetFullyQualifiedShortURL();

Click the Actions button, select Log to History List, click this message, set the Source to Workflow Data and the Field to shortURL.
Close the Workflow Designer and add an item to your list or library to trigger the workflow.
Once the workflow has finished, click the Completed link to see the generated short URL.

Naturally this is just a simple example. Under normal circumstances you would do something more useful with the shortURL workflow variable, for example embed it in an email.

Synchronise SharePoint Lists (Calendar/Tasks) using the Workflow Power Pack

2009-12-28T11:10:00.001Z

When I worked in the SharePoint team for a London based financial firm, one of the first user requests that came up was to find an easy way to synchronise team calendar entries with a department level calendar.

There are a number of ways to approach the automatic synchronisation of lists (a Calendar is just a SharePoint list). In this posting I will discuss how to synchronise any source list with a destination list, with the Exception of Document Libraries, using the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack and a small script.

Before developing the script we have to think about our approach as the synchronisation of list items involves both adding new items as well as updating existing ones. In order to be able to update an item we need to somehow track which item in the destination list is a copy of an item in the source list. As SharePoint does not provide an easy way to track this kind of information (The CopySource field is read only, sigh) the script will need to create a new and hidden field on the destination list to track an item’s origin.

The solution presented below allows any two lists to be synchronised in one direction (Source List to Destination List). The name of the Destination List is passed using Parameter 1. Only those fields available in both the source and destination lists will be copied over so there is no need for the two lists to have exactly the same content type. The very first time the script is executed, a new hidden field will be created on the Destination List, so make sure you execute the first run using an account that has the appropriate privileges to add columns to the list.

Create the workflow as follows:

Download and install the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a source and destination list, e.g. Calendar and Destination Calendar.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with the source list and tick the two automatic boxes and proceed to the next screen.
Click the Actions button and insert the Execute Custom Code action.
Click parameter 1 and enter the name of the Destination List.

Insert the following C# based code by clicking this code.

SPList sourceList = MyWorkflow.List;

SPList destinationList = MyWorkflow.Web.Lists[MyWorkflow.Parameter1 as String];

SPListItem sourceItem = MyWorkflow.Item;

// ** Check if our custom Source field already exists on the destination list

if (destinationList.Fields.ContainsField("_M_CopySource") == false)

      SPField newField = destinationList.Fields.CreateNewField("Text", "_M_CopySource");

      newField.Hidden = true;

      destinationList.Fields.Add(newField);

// ** Check if the item needs to be copied or updated.

string camlQuery = "<Where>" +

                   "<Eq><FieldRef Name='_M_CopySource'/><Value Type='Text'>{0}</Value></Eq>" +

                   "</Where>";

camlQuery = string.Format(camlQuery, sourceItem["FileRef"]);

SPQuery query = new SPQuery();

query.Query = camlQuery;

query.RowLimit = 1;

// ** Query the list

SPListItemCollection items = destinationList.GetItems(query);

SPListItem newItem = null;

if (items.Count == 0)

    newItem = destinationList.Items.Add();

else

    newItem = items[0];

// ** Copy the fields

foreach(SPField field in sourceItem.Fields)

    if (newItem.Fields.ContainsField(field.InternalName) == true &&

        field.ReadOnlyField == false && field.InternalName != "Attachments")

       newItem[field.InternalName] = sourceItem[field.InternalName];

// ** Delete any existing attachments in the target item

for (int i = newItem.Attachments.Count; i > 0; i-- )

    newItem.Attachments.Delete(newItem.Attachments[i-1]);

// ** Copy any attachments

foreach (string fileName in sourceItem.Attachments)

    SPFile file = sourceItem.ParentList.ParentWeb.GetFile(sourceItem.Attachments.UrlPrefix +

                                                          fileName);

    byte[] imageData = file.OpenBinary();

    newItem.Attachments.Add(fileName, imageData);

// ** Remember where the original was copied from so we can update it in the future

newItem["_M_CopySource"] = sourceItem["FileRef"];

newItem.Update();

Close the Workflow Designer and add an item to the source list to trigger the workflow.
Once the workflow has finished, open the destination list and verify the source item has been copied over.

As mentioned previously, it should be possible to use this script on any list with the exception of Document Libraries. Synchronising Document Libraries can be done using a similar approach, but copying an item works slightly different.

The script in this post assumes the destination list lives in the same site as the source list. This, however, can be easily changed by referencing the desired list in line 2 of the code.

You may want to add a condition to only synchronise list items that match certain criteria (e.g. status = completed).

Automatically mirror / sync a SharePoint folder structure using the Workflow Power Pack

2009-12-23T09:05:00.001Z

Quite a few of our customers use a SharePoint Designer workflow to automatically create PDF files whenever a document is created or modified in a SharePoint Document Library. Some of these customers want to use the same directory structure for the source files as well as the converted files.

The problem that we’ll address in this posting is how to automatically synchronise the two directory structures using the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack and a small script.

The script we’ll develop is executed every time a file is created anywhere in a document library. The file’s path will be extracted and replicated in the destination Document Library. Ideally we would only like to trigger this workflow whenever a new folder is created, but using SharePoint designer it is not possible to trigger workflows for folders.

At the end of the custom activity the destination path is returned to the workflow, from where it can be used for further processing.

Create the workflow as follows:

Download and install the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a source and destination Document Library. Alternatively use the same Document Library for the source and the destination, just create a new folder in the root to mirror the folder structure to.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with the Source Document Library and tick the box next to “Automatically start this workflow when a new item is created” and proceed to the next screen.
Click the Actions button and insert the Execute Custom Code action.
Click this variable and create a new Workflow Variable named destinationPath using string as the type.

Insert the following C# based code by clicking this code.

SPList sourceList = MyWorkflow.List;

// ** The destination Document Library (optionally point it to a different site collection)

SPList destinationList = MyWorkflow.Web.Lists["Some Destination DocLib"];

// ** If the destination directory structure should not start in the root directory, enter

// ** the folder path to the root destination folder here

string rootFolderName = "";

string destinationListURL = destinationList.RootFolder.ServerRelativeUrl + rootFolderName;

// ** Generate a list of folders for the current item

SPListItem sourceFile = MyWorkflow.Item;

Stack<string> folders = new Stack<string>();

SPFolder folder = sourceFile.File.ParentFolder;

while (folder.Name != string.Empty)

    folders.Push(folder.Name);

    folder = folder.ParentFolder;

// ** discard the first as it is the name of the Doc lib itself

folders.Pop();

// ** Iterate through the list of folders in reverse

while(folders.Count != 0)

    string folderToCreate = folders.Pop();

    // ** Check if the folder already exists, in which case no action is required

    folder = destinationList.ParentWeb.GetFolder(destinationListURL + "/" + folderToCreate);

    if (folder.Exists == false)

        // ** Create the new folder

        SPListItem newFolder = destinationList.Items.Add(destinationListURL,

                                            SPFileSystemObjectType.Folder, folderToCreate);

        newFolder.Update();

    destinationListURL += "/" + folderToCreate;

MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = destinationListURL;

Update the destinationList and rootFolderName variables to match your situation.
Click the Actions button, select Log to History List, click this message, set the Source to Workflow Data and the Field to destinationPath.
Close the Workflow Designer and add an item somewhere in a nested folder in the source Document Library to trigger the workflow.
Once the workflow has finished, click the Completed link to see which path the new folder has been created in. Check that the destination folder(s) have been created by navigating to the Destination Library.

In case you want to use this in combination with Muhimbi’s PDF Converter for SharePoint then you can use the path returned in the destinationPath variable and use it as the destination URL in the Convert To PDF workflow activity. If you want to use it in combination with something else, then use it as you see fit.

Note that a small change may be required to the script, or perhaps as a Custom Code Condition, if the source and destination Document Libraries are the same and files will be written to the location specified in rootFolderName. Otherwise the folder structure inside the destination folder will be mirrored in the destination folder, just at a deeper level.

SharePoint Workflow Power Pack User Guide - Embedding .net code in a Workflow Action

2009-12-22T15:27:00.001Z

In part 3 of our series of User Guide related blog postings for the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint we provide an example of how to embed c# or vb code directly into a SharePoint Designer Workflow Action.

The following Blog postings are part of this User Guide series:

Language Features: Discusses the script like syntax, the generic workflow action and condition, passing parameters, returning values from a workflow and using the MyWorkflow property.
Embedding .net code in a Workflow Condition: Provides a number of examples of how to use the Evaluate Custom Code condition to carry out basic as well as complex conditional tasks.
Embedding .net code in a Workflow Action (this article): Contains a number of examples of how to use the Execute Custom Code to basically carry out any action you can think of in a SharePoint Designer Workflow.
Creating Custom Methods: Shows how to create your own methods in your scripts in order to keep the code organised and easy to maintain.

SharePoint ships with a number of Workflow Actions to carry out basic tasks such as setting the value of an item or sending an email. However, if you need to do something slightly different that is not supported by any of the stock actions, you need to resort to expensive third party utilities that may match some of your requirements, but probably not all of them.

This section describes how to use the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack to implement your exact requirements without any limits or dependencies on third party logic. See part 2 of this series for another example that automatically renames a file based on keywords in its name.

Reading a SQL Database using a Workflow Action

Although SharePoint can be used to store much of your data, in reality a typical enterprise stores data in all kind of formats and data stores.

In this example we’ll discuss how to use the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack to retrieve data stored in a SQL Server Database. The example is not particularly practical as we just read a group name out of the SharePoint Content Database, however the same principle can be used for any database.

To create this workflow, carry out the following steps:

We need to be able to access functionality in the System.Data assembly. Add this reference to the relevant Web Application using the Workflow Power Pack Central Administration screens as described in the Administration Guide.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create workflows on a site collection.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with your list of choice (any list will do), tick the two “automatically start” check boxes and proceed to the next screen.
Click the Actions button and insert the Execute Custom Code action.
Click this variable and create a new Workflow Variable named groupName using string as the type.

Insert the following C# based code by clicking this code.

using System.Data.SqlClient;

// ** Get the connection string for the content DB

string connString =

            MyWorkflow.Site.WebApplication.ContentDatabases[0].DatabaseConnectionString;

using(SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connString))

    connection.Open();

    // ** Execute the Query

    string sql = "SELECT TOP (1) Title FROM Groups";

    SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(sql, connection);

    // ** Store the result in the ReturnValue

    SqlDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader();

    if(reader.Read() == true)

        MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = reader["Title"].ToString();

Click the Actions button, select Log to History List, click this message, set the Source to Workflow Data and the Field to groupName.
Close the Workflow Designer and add / update an item in the list to trigger the workflow.
Once the workflow has finished, click the Completed link to see the output.

We are connecting to the content database in this example to make it easier to execute as no new databases or connection strings need to be created.

SharePoint Workflow Power Pack User Guide - Embedding .net code in a Workflow Condition

2009-12-22T14:01:00.001Z

In part 2 of our series of User Guide related blog postings for the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint we provide a number of examples of how to embed c# or vb code directly into a SharePoint Designer Workflow Condition.

The following Blog postings are part of this User Guide series:

Language Features: Discusses the script like syntax, the generic workflow action and condition, passing parameters, returning values from a workflow and using the MyWorkflow property.
Embedding .net code in a Workflow Condition (this article): Provides a number of examples of how to use the Evaluate Custom Code condition to carry out basic as well as complex conditional tasks.
Embedding .net code in a Workflow Action: Contains a number of examples of how to use the Execute Custom Code to basically carry out any action you can think of in a SharePoint Designer Workflow.
Creating Custom Methods: Shows how to create your own methods in your scripts in order to keep the code organised and easy to maintain.

SharePoint ships with a number of Workflow Conditions to carry out basic comparisons inside your SharePoint Designer workflows. However, these Conditions are limited in scope and mainly facilitate simple comparisons of workflow variables.

This post describes how to use the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack to write your own conditional logic in c# and embed it directly into your SharePoint Designer workflow.

Simple Example - File name validation

The following example shows how to check if a document’s file name contains a reference to a highly confidential project (Project Flames). If it does then the document will be renamed automatically.

To create this workflow, carry out the following steps:

Make sure you have access to a Document Library in a site collection and the appropriate privileges to design a workflow on that site collection.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with your Document Library, tick the two “automatically start” check boxes and proceed to the next screen.
Click the Conditions button and insert the Evaluate Custom Code condition.

Insert the following C# based code by clicking code and then the ellipsis (…) button.

if (MyWorkflow.Item.Name.IndexOf("Flames", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) >= 0)

    MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = true;

else

    MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = false;

Add the Execute Custom Code Action and insert the following code by clicking this code and pasting the following.
```
MyWorkflow.Item["Name"] = MyWorkflow.Item.Name.Replace("Flames", "XXXXX");
```
```
MyWorkflow.Item.Update();
```
Close the workflow designer. This will automatically check the syntax of the code embedded in the Custom Action.

The workflow is now ready to be executed. Upload a file named “Project Flames Hostile Takeover.docx” and watch it being renamed automatically.

In this simple example we could have merged the conditional code into the Action. However that would not work with more complex workflows where the Action does not necessarily contain our own custom code.

Complex example - Check field in InfoPath form

As we have access to the full power of the .net framework, there are very few limitations to how complex the conditional code can be. In the following example we will check the value of a field stored deeply in an XML Document generated by InfoPath. To be more specific, if any of the items in the Expense claim form were filed for a day in the weekend then we will send an email to John the Expenses Manager.

Naturally this conditional logic could have been added inside the validation of the InfoPath form itself. However, that would require access to Tom the InfoPath Expert and Tom is very busy and going on holiday tomorrow. In other words, we will need to be creative.

To create this workflow, carry out the following steps:

We need to be able to access functionality in the System.XML assembly. Add this reference to the relevant Web Application using the Workflow Power Pack Central Administration screens as described in the Administration guide.
Make sure you have the appropriate privileges to create Form Libraries and design workflows on a site collection.
Open InfoPath, select Customize a Sample followed by Sample - Expense Report.
Select Publish from the File menu, save the form anywhere on your local system and complete the wizard to publish it to a new Document Library named Expense Forms in your site collection. There is no need to expose any columns to SharePoint.
In the Expense Forms Document Library fill out the form, enter one expense in a weekend and make sure you save it to the Document Library. Don’t submit it as that will go via email.
Create a new workflow using SharePoint Designer.
On the Workflow definition screen associate the workflow with your new Expense Forms Document Library, tick the two “automatically start” check boxes and proceed to the next screen.
Click the Conditions button and insert the Evaluate Custom Code condition.

Insert the following C# based code by clicking code and then the ellipsis (…) button.

using System.Xml;

using System.IO;

// ** Innocent until proven guilty

MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = false;

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

// ** Load the XML Form data out of the current item

using(Stream s = MyWorkflow.Item.File.OpenBinaryStream())

    doc.Load(s);

    // ** Make sure we can query the namespaces properly.

    XmlNamespaceManager xnsm = new XmlNamespaceManager(doc.NameTable);

    xnsm.AddNamespace("my",

        "http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2003/myXSD/2005-10-21T21:12:27");

    // ** Select all date nodes and iterate through them

    XmlNodeList list = doc.SelectNodes("//my:date", xnsm);

    foreach (XmlNode node in list)

        // ** Convert the date string to a real date

        DateTime expenseDate = DateTime.ParseExact(node.InnerText, "yyyy-MM-dd", null);

        if (expenseDate.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Saturday ||

            expenseDate.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Sunday)

            MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = true;

            break;

Click the Actions button and select the Send an Email activity and fill in the blanks to make it send an email to the relevant manager.
Close the Workflow Designer and re-save the previously saved Expense Form to trigger the workflow.

SharePoint Workflow Power Pack User Guide - Language Features

2009-12-22T12:06:00.001Z

Even though we have only recently released the Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint, we are already getting good feedback from users. Most of the questions we get are already covered in the User Guide, which is why we have decided to republish the user guide as a series of blog postings.

The following Blog postings are part of this User Guide series:

Language Features (this article): Discusses the script like syntax, the generic workflow action and condition, passing parameters, returning values from a workflow and using the MyWorkflow property.
Embedding .net code in a Workflow Condition: Provides a number of examples of how to use the Evaluate Custom Code condition to carry out basic as well as complex conditional tasks.
Embedding .net code in a Workflow Action: Contains a number of examples of how to use the Execute Custom Code to basically carry out any action you can think of in a SharePoint Designer Workflow.
Creating Custom Methods: Shows how to create your own methods in your scripts in order to keep the code organised and easy to maintain.

Script Like Syntax

To allow code to be entered in an easy fashion, without needing to worry about namespaces, class or method names, the WPP takes a script like approach. In essence the person designing the workflow can just enter a single line of code and the WPP will make sure it is wrapped in the appropriate class.

Even though the traditional structure of a typical C# or VB.net file is not used, it is still possible to add shortcuts to namespaces by adding Using (c#) or Imports (VB) statements to the top of the code.

A simple C# code sample looks as follows:

using System.Xml;

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

doc.LoadXml("<Test>Content</Test>");

MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = doc.SelectSingleNode("//Test").InnerText;

Note that in order to use System.XML, a reference will need to be added in Central Admin. For details see the Administration Guide

Workflow Action Structure

When adding a new Execute Custom Code action to a workflow you are presented with the following workflow sentence.

The fields are as follows.

Field	Type	Description
this code	Text	The C# or VB.net code to execute.
Language	C# or VB	The language the code is written in.
parameter 1	Object	An optional parameter to pass to the workflow.
parameter 2	Object	Another optional parameter to pass to the workflow.
this variable	Object	An optional workflow parameter to fill with the result.
Enter an optional comment	Text	An optional summary of what the code does.

Workflow Condition structure

When adding an Evaluate Custom Code Condition to a workflow, you are presented with the following.

The fields are as follows.

Field	Type	Description
this code	Text	The C# or VB.net code to execute.
Language	C# or VB	The language the code is written in.
parameter 1	Object	An optional parameter to pass to the condition.
parameter 2	Object	Another optional parameter to pass to the condition.
Enter an optional comment	Text	An optional summary of what the code does.

A condition should always evaluate to either True or False.

Passing values and Parameters

Workflow parameters and other values can be passed to the custom code in a number of ways.

Parameter 1 & 2: Use the Parameter 1 & 2 variables to pass a constant, workflow variable or any other kind of Workflow Lookup value. Note that these values are passed as type Object and may need to be cast into the correct data type in your code.

The Parameter1 and Parameter2 values can be accessed from the custom code using the MyWorkflow variable. For details see Using the MyWorkflow section below.

Embedding Workflow Lookup variables: Workflow Actions allow lookup variables to be directly embedded into the source code using the Add Lookup button.

At runtime all lookup variables are placed into the code as text, so please make sure that the generated syntax is still valid.

For example, the following code will not execute correctly:

String name = [%Variable: firstName%];

As this may result in the following code:

String name = John;

To solve this problem, add quotes around the variable as follows:

String name = "[%Variable: firstName%]";

Which will result in to following, syntactically correct, code:

String name = "John";

Note that SharePoint does not allow Workflow Lookups to be defined in the code for Custom Conditions as these are handled differently inside the workflow execution engine.

Returning Values

Variables or result values can be returned from your custom code by using the MyWorkflow.ReturnValue property.

Returning values using the return statement is not supported.

Using the MyWorkflow property

When developing workflows you frequently need access to data related to the workflow. To make accessing this data easy you can access the MyWorkflow property from your own code.

MyWorkflow underlying type

The MyWorkflow property has the following fields.

Field	Type	Description
ActivityExecutionContext	ActivityExecutionContext	Represents the execution environment of an Activity. This class selectively exposes workflow runtime capabilities and services to individual activities.
Item	SPListItem	Reference to the item the current workflow is acting on.
List	SPList	Reference to the SharePoint list the current item is located in.
Parameter1	Object	The first, optional, parameter passed in by the workflow.
Parameter2	Object	The second, optional, parameter passed in by the workflow.
Site	SPSite	Reference to the site collection the workflow is located in.
Web	SPWeb	Reference to the site the workflow is located in.
WorkflowContext	WorkflowContext	Reference to the SharePoint workflow Context.
WorkflowInstanceId	Guid	The ID of the current workflow instance.

The following code illustrates how to use some of the MyWorkflow fields from your own code.

using System.Workflow.ComponentModel;

using Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow;

// ** Concatenate the strings

String message = String.Format(

    "SPSite: {0} - SPWeb: {1} - SPList: {2} - Item: {3} - P1: {4} - P2: {5} - User: {6}",

    MyWorkflow.Site.ServerRelativeUrl, MyWorkflow.Web.Title, MyWorkflow.List.Title,

    MyWorkflow.Item.Title, MyWorkflow.Parameter1, MyWorkflow.Parameter2,

    MyWorkflow.Web.CurrentUser.LoginName);

// ** Log to the workflow history

ISharePointService service = (ISharePointService)

    MyWorkflow.ActivityExecutionContext.GetService(typeof(ISharePointService));

service.LogToHistoryList(MyWorkflow.WorkflowInstanceId, SPWorkflowHistoryEventType.None,

    0, TimeSpan.MinValue, "", message, message);

// ** Pass the message back to the workflow for further processing

MyWorkflow.ReturnValue = message;

This is just an example. Rather than logging to the workflow history from your own code, you could simply pass the ReturnValue into a standard SharePoint Designer Log to History List activity.

Embed C# or VB code in SharePoint Designer Workflows using the Workflow Power Pack

2009-12-21T10:40:00.001Z

One of our customers recently wrote in a support email “If only Microsoft allowed C# code to be used in SharePoint Designer workflows, my life would be so much easier”. Little did this person know that we were in the middle of a development cycle to make his wish come true, just in time for Christmas as well.

The Muhimbi Workflow Power Pack for SharePoint allows custom C# or VB.NET code to be embedded in SharePoint Designer Workflows without the need to resort to complex Visual Studio based workflows, the development of bespoke Workflow Activities or long development cycles.

What does this mean for day-to-day SharePoint Designer Workflow development? When Microsoft released SharePoint 2007, they included a basic set of Workflow Actions and Conditions to allow basic comparison of values and simple tasks such as setting a field value or logging to the Workflow History. If you wanted to do anything else your options were limited to expensive third party workflow tools that would hopefully support the functionality you are after, or writing your own solution in Visual Studio.

From as little as $349, the Workflow Power Pack is the last 3rd party workflow solution you’ll ever need. The possibilities are only limited by your own imagination, for example:

Carry out tasks by comparing deeply nested XML data inside InfoPath forms.
Create Actions that directly access SQL Databases or other common data sources.
Make string, date and numerical operations simple (Finally!).
Access any SharePoint functionality using the SharePoint Object Model.
Send emails and includie attachments.
Create folders in the current SharePoint List or any other list regardless of Site Collection.
Control security on individual List Items or entire Document Libraries.
Invoke web services or any 1st or 3rd party assembly, for example our PDF Converter for SharePoint or URL Shortener for SharePoint.

The list goes on and on. Basically, if it exposes a .net interface, you can access it using the Workflow Power Pack.

Embed C# or VB.net code directly into your SharePoint Designer Workflow

Key features:

Embed C# or VB code in SharePoint Designer Workflow Conditions.
Embed C# or VB code in SharePoint Designer Workflow Actions.
Easily access the Workflow context using the MyWorkflow property.
Easily pass workflow parameters in and out of the custom code.
Secure the system by controlling access to the assemblies that can be used.
Comes with comprehensive documentation and access to a professional and responsive support desk.

Secure your system by controlling which Assemblies can be accessed

For more information check out the following resources:

As always, feel free to contact us using Twitter, our Blog, regular email or subscribe to our newsletter.

Download your free trial here (1MB).

Converting Office files to PDF Format using a Web Services based interface

2009-12-02T16:44:00.001Z

One of the key changes introduced with the release of the Muhimbi PDF Converter Service 3.0 is the ability to convert typical Office files via a web services based interface. Although we mainly target the SharePoint market, there is no reason why you can’t just install the Muhimbi Document Converter Service (MDCS) on your server and access it from your own .NET or Java solution using a web services based interface.

This post describes the key features of our web services based interface and provides a simple example of how to use it to convert a document to PDF format. Source code for a more comprehensive demo is available for download as well. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Prerequisites

Let’s make sure all prerequisites are in place before we start our tutorial.

Download the PDF Converter.
Install it in-line with chapter 2 of the included Administration Guide.
Note that if you are not using it in combination with SharePoint or on a machine that does not have SharePoint installed then:
- there is no need to install the SharePoint Front End.
- you need to change the group names used for authentication as per section 2.3.2 of the Administration Guide.

Key Features

Key Features of the Muhimbi Document Conversion Service are:

Convert popular document types to PDF or XPS format with near perfect fidelity. At the time of writing support is available for MS-Word, PowerPoint, Excel, InfoPath and MS-Publisher, but by the time you are reading this additional document formats may have been added.
Scalable architecture that allows multiple conversions to run in parallel.
Runs as a Windows Service. No need to install or configure IIS or other web service frameworks.
Convert password protected documents.
Apply security settings to generated PDF files including encryption, password protection and multiple levels of PDF Security options to prevent users from printing documents or copy a document’s content.
Generate a regular PDF file or a file in PDF/A format.
Generate high resolution PDF Files optimised for printing or normal resolution files optimised for use on screen.
Dynamically refresh a document’s content before generating the PDF. Ideal for merging content from SharePoint custom columns into your PDF file.
Control how to deal with hidden / selected content such as PowerPoint Slides and Excel worksheets.

In addition to the features described above, the MDCS software stack also contains a layer of functionality to control concurrency, request queuing and watchdog services to deal with unresponsive and runaway processes. More detail can be found in the brochure.

Object Model

Although the Object Model exposed by the web service is easy to understand, the system provides very powerful functionality and fine grained control to specify how the PDF file is generated.

As outlined in the image below, the web service contains 3 methods:

Convert: Convert the file in the sourceFile byte array using the specified openOptions and conversionSettings. The generated PDF or XPS file is returned as a byte array as well.
GetConfiguration: Retrieve information about which converters are supported and the associated file extensions. Consider calling this service once to retrieve a list of valid file extensions and check if a file is supported before it is submit to the web service. This will prevent a lot of redundant traffic and will increase scalability.
GetDiagnostics: Run a diagnostics test that carries out an internal end-to-end test for each supported document type. Call this method to check if the service and all prerequisites have been deployed correctly.

The full object model is available in the following diagram. Click to enlarge it.

PDF Converter Web Service Class Diagram. Click to enlarge.

Simple example code

The following sample shows the minimum steps required to convert a document to PDF format. In our example we are using Visual Studio and C#, but any environment that can invoke web services should be able to access the required functionality. Note that the WSDL can be found at http://localhost:41734/Muhimbi.DocumentConverter.WebService/?wsdl.

Start a new Visual Studio project and use the project type of your choice. In this example we are using a standard .net 3.0 project of type Windows Forms Application. Name it ‘Simple PDF Converter Sample’.
Add a TextBox and Button control button to the form. Accept the default names of textBox1 and button1.
In the Solution Explorer window, right-click References and select Add Service Reference.
In the Address box enter the WSDL address listed in the introduction of this section. If the MDCS is located on a different machine then substitute localhost with the server’s name.
Accept the default Namespace of ServiceReference1 and click the OK button to generate the proxy classes.
Double click Button1 and replace the content of the entire code file with the following:

using System;

using System.IO;

using System.ServiceModel;

using System.Windows.Forms;

using Simple_PDF_Converter_Sample.ServiceReference1;

namespace Simple_PDF_Converter_Sample

    public partial class Form1 : Form

        // ** The URL where the Web Service is located. Amend host name if needed.

        string SERVICE_URL = "http://localhost:41734/Muhimbi.DocumentConverter.WebService/";

        public Form1()

            InitializeComponent();

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

            DocumentConverterServiceClient client = null;

try

                // ** Determine the source file and read it into a byte array.

                string sourceFileName = textBox1.Text;

                byte[] sourceFile = File.ReadAllBytes(sourceFileName);

                // ** Open the service and configure the bindings

                client = OpenService(SERVICE_URL);

                //** Set the absolute minimum open options

                OpenOptions openOptions = new OpenOptions();

                openOptions.OriginalFileName = Path.GetFileName(sourceFileName);

                openOptions.FileExtension = Path.GetExtension(sourceFileName);

                // ** Set the absolute minimum conversion settings.

                ConversionSettings conversionSettings = new ConversionSettings();

                conversionSettings.Fidelity = ConversionFidelities.Full;

                conversionSettings.Quality = ConversionQuality.OptimizeForPrint;

                // ** Carry out the conversion.

                byte[] convFile = client.Convert(sourceFile, openOptions, conversionSettings);

                // ** Write the converted file back to the file system with a PDF extension.

                string destinationFileName = Path.GetDirectoryName(sourceFileName) + @"\" +

                                             Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(sourceFileName) +

                                             "." + conversionSettings.Format;

                using (FileStream fs = File.Create(destinationFileName))

                    fs.Write(convFile, 0, convFile.Length);

                    fs.Close();

                MessageBox.Show("File converted to " + destinationFileName);

            catch (FaultException<WebServiceFaultException> ex)

                MessageBox.Show("FaultException occurred: ExceptionType: " +

                                 ex.Detail.ExceptionType.ToString());

            catch (Exception ex)

                MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());

            finally

                CloseService(client);

        /// <summary>

        /// Configure the Bindings, endpoints and open the service using the specified address.

        /// </summary>

        /// <returns>An instance of the Web Service.</returns>

        public static DocumentConverterServiceClient OpenService(string address)

            DocumentConverterServiceClient client = null;

try

                BasicHttpBinding binding = new BasicHttpBinding();

                // ** Use standard Windows Security.

                binding.Security.Mode = BasicHttpSecurityMode.TransportCredentialOnly;

                binding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType =

                                                            HttpClientCredentialType.Windows;

                // ** Increase the Timeout to deal with (very) long running requests.

                binding.SendTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(30);

                binding.ReceiveTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(30);

                // ** Set the maximum document size to 40MB

                binding.MaxReceivedMessageSize = 50*1024*1024;

                binding.ReaderQuotas.MaxArrayLength = 50 * 1024 * 1024;

                binding.ReaderQuotas.MaxStringContentLength = 50 * 1024 * 1024;

                // ** Specify an identity (any identity) in order to get it past .net3.5 sp1

                EndpointIdentity epi = EndpointIdentity.CreateUpnIdentity("unknown");

                EndpointAddress epa = new EndpointAddress(new Uri(address), epi);

                client = new DocumentConverterServiceClient(binding, epa);

                client.Open();

                return client;

            catch (Exception)

                CloseService(client);

                throw;

        /// <summary>

        /// Check if the client is open and then close it.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="client">The client to close</param>

        public static void CloseService(DocumentConverterServiceClient client)

            if (client != null && client.State == CommunicationState.Opened)

                client.Close();

Providing the project and all controls are named as per the steps above, it should compile without errors. Run it, enter the full path to the source file, e.g. an MS-Word document, and click the button to start the conversion process. The conversion may take a few second depending on the complexity of the document.

Note that In this example we are programmatically configuring the WCF Bindings and End Points. If you wish you can use a declarative approach using the config file.

Download the source code including a compiled binary.

Complex sample code

In order to carry out internal testing we have developed an application that can be used to control each end every function exposed by the web services. The full source code as well as a compiled binary can be downloaded below.

Note that although the test harness works well and can be used to batch convert a large number of documents, this is not commercial grade code. Use at your own risk.

Download the source code including a compiled binary.

Final notes

When using the PDF Converter from your own custom SharePoint code, you may want to consider using our high level Wrapper methods. If you are not using the wrapper methods then please make sure you are invoking the web service from a user who has privileges to do so. By wrapping the code in SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges you will automatically connect using an account in the WSS_WPG windows group, which has access by default.