Display all your alerts ~ IT Pro Ramblings

29 April 2008

Display all your alerts

by Patrik Luca 4 comments

Business requirement: display all your alerts

A missing feature in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is the possibility to display all the alerts you have set up. After a while, an end-user has subscribed himself to multiple lists, document libraries and items. The end-user forgets which alerts he has set up so far, resulting in setting up twice the same alert etc. An end-user likes also to have an overview on which he can easily modify or delete alerts. The out-of-the box functionality requires to go to each list or document library, on which the end-user has activated his alert, to modify or delete existing alerts.

Solution: Install My Alerts web part

René Hezser created a great web part which provides this functionality, called My alerts.
To install René Hezsers My alerts web part, follow these steps:

Create a .bat file with following code:
echo off
path = "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\"
echo Deleting old solution
stsadm.exe -o deletesolution -name "RH.MyAlerts.wsp" -override
echo Adding solution
stsadm.exe -o addsolution -filename "RH.MyAlerts.wsp"
echo Deploying solution
stsadm.exe -o deploysolution -name "RH.MyAlerts.wsp" -allcontenturls -immediate -allowgacdeployment -force
echo Running timer jobs to finish deployment
stsadm.exe -o execadmsvcjobs

Echo Please enter the url to the site collection to which you want to activate the feature to:
set /p SitePath=
stsadm.exe -o activatefeature -name "MyAlerts" -url %SitePath% -force
echo RH.MyAlerts.wsp Solution installed.

Run the .bat file created in the previous step to install and deploy the feature in your farm.

Install the web part to the global assembly cache (GAC)

Start the Visual Studio Command Prompt (in the program group Visual Studio Tools).

Go to the directory where the dll is installed (typically c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\bin).

Run the command gacutil /i RH.MyAlerts.dll

Run iisreset.

If you receive following error upon adding the My Alerts web part to a page: Unable to add selected web part(s). My Alerts: Cannot import this Web Part, then your trust level is not set correctly for the My Alerts web part. Most likely, your installation of the webpart to the GAC was not succesful. For more information about SharePoint web part security you can read this post from Brett Burley.

Comments 4 comments

Anonymous said...: I have updated my Webpart, so it will install into the GAC. You don't need the step anymore.
http://www.hezser.de/blog/Lists/Beitraege/Post.aspx?ID=92

René; 20 May, 2008 11:40
Remco Gerrets said...: Hi,

This is a wonderful webpart and extremely useful. I am running the webpart in combination with the site warmup method provided by SPWakeup (http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.codeplex.com/SPWakeUp&ei=FH3xSYjlCIu4-QawgPm7Dw&usg=AFQjCNESzbQNSitVf0Qwx1Px6gyNh6ya0Q).
However, whenever SPWakeUp comes across a site containing the My Alerts webpart our SQL logfile show the following error:

--start: SQL log file--
Error: 18456, Severity: 14, State: 16.
2009-04-21 08:55:33.34 Logon Login failed for user '{username}'. [CLIENT: {servername}]
--end: SQL log file--

When doing a trace on our SQL environment we found that the webpart is trying to access the master database, which naturally results in a failed login (see trace excerpt below).

--start: SQL profiler trace excerpt--
Audit Login Failed .Net SqlClient Data Provider 2936 1 master 18456 68385817 1 - Nonpooled {SERVERNAME} {USERNAME} 0 437 {USERNAME} 2009-04-24 10:27:12.430 0 Login failed for user '{USERNAME}'. [CLIENT: {SERVERNAME}]
--end: SQL profiler trace excerpt--

It seems that the alerts webpart is somehow not just trying to access existing databases, but also databases that have been removed (for example when removing a site collection).

I am not sure how to find which version of the My Alerts webpart we are using. I tried to access your site but it seems down at the moment. Is there any update available of this webpart, because this is definitely very handy and it would be a shame if we would not be able to use it because it is generating these obscure database errors.

Should you have any questions or require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thanks in advance.

With kind regards,

Remco Gerrets; 24 April, 2009 10:52
Patrik Luca said...: I haven't experienced yet this problem, but the site of René is back online: I suggest you to download the latest version and see if it is fixed already in it.; 27 April, 2009 21:42
Remco Gerrets said...: Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your comment. I am trying to get to René's website, but it still seems down (Page cannot be found after a timeout). Hopefully Am I using the correct URL: http://www.hezser.de/ ?

Thanks again.

regards,

Remco; 07 May, 2009 09:22

29 April 2008