Friday, July 13, 2007

[MOSS2007] Issues with web part toolbars and audiences/Active Directory groups

Over the past few days I ran into some small but very annoying issues with SharePoint 2007:

The first is with a document library web part. After placing a document library web part on a page and configuring it with a “Full Toolbar”, I wanted to change some fields which are shown in the web part. I opened the “Modify This Web part” menu, clicked “Edit current view”, made some changes and clicked Ok. When the web part page was shown, the Full Toolbar had switched back to the Summary Toolbar. Also the “Modify This Web part” sidebar was closed. It meant I had to open the sidebar again and configure the Full Toolbar again. Very annoying behavior!

The second issue is when you are using Active Directory groups in audiences. In SharePoint 2003, using audiences meant creating special audiences which are compiled according to predefined rules. As of SharePoint 2007 it is possible to use AD groups directly as an audience. When a user is a member of that group, the item or web part is shown to the user.
On a page I had several web part configured with AD group audiences. In the AD I moved the groups to a different OU and after a profile import my web parts weren’t shown to anyone any more. Some troubleshooting revealed that the groups were in the profile list twice, one for the old OU and one for the new OU. Because they had exactly the same name, I could not determine which group was the correct one. I added both groups to the web part audience to get it working again.
Looks like SharePoint is looking at the absolute DN when using AD groups in audiences. Now I am hoping the “old” groups will disappear automatically……not really sure.

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