Fix for VS build error: The "FindRibbons" task could not be loaded

I opened an Outlook customisation/plug-in project to do some modifications today and on building received the following delightful error message:

The "FindRibbons" task could not be loaded from the assembly Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.BuildTasks, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a.  Confirm that the <UsingTask> declaration is correct, that the assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask

Wow, highlight of my week!

It looks like the issue is related to installing VS2012 side by side with VS2010, it updates the dlls relating to MSBuild, but not the references held in the standard configuration file. The Microsoft forums (via Google) found me my answer in a reply by 'sriram_electric' (thank you!):

For those who encounter this problem, goto C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\OfficeTools and open the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.targets file.

Replace all 10.0.0.0 with 11.0.0.0

In my case I had to go to Program Files (x86) as I'm running a 64bit OS, but other than that, and a quick restart of VS, the problem was resolved.

If this doesn't work for you, there are other suggested solutions given in the thread above.

- rob

Upgrading SharePoint 2007 workflows to SharePoint 2010

As part of an ongoing migration project I'm looking at shifting a bunch of sequential and state machine workflows written for SharePoint 2007 (in VS2008) into SharePoint 2010 (which uses VS2010). The business logic behind them is sound enough and I'm on a relatively tight time-scale, so it's not feasible to carry out a review of these processes at the same time (otherwise I'd jump at the chance to LEAN them up, whilst they are relatively sound in respect of their reflection of current business practice, I wouldn't claim that the business practices they support are ideally optimised!)

There's a good blog post on how to do it here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bethmassi/archive/2010/01/15/migrating-a-2007-workflow-to-visual-studio-sharepoint-2010.aspx

To go with this I'll also need to update the associated Infopath 2007 forms to 2010, again, someone else has done the hard work of working out how, here:

http://www.tcscblog.com/2011/09/05/upgrade-infopath-2007-to-2010/

I'll be reporting back soon once I've verified that both these approaches actually work!

- rob

Kanban for one!

I was perusing Joel Semenuik's paper.li and came across this great idea, the personal Kanban:

BISM and application development convergence - the holy grail of data?

A thought struck me whilst at a session on DAX at TechEd2012 on DAX and its evolution from a functional thing within Excel, to a full-blooded query language.

This in itself is cool and interesting, but with all of the sessions that I've been attending on the Business Intelligence Semantic Model area (BISM) and the way that data experts can build rich Tabular semantic models using PowerPivot the following thought occured:

When will the development and analysis usages of data found themselves on a common model? At what point will a developer make use of the same BISM as someone building a report on that data? Surely this is the holy grail of data interaction and usage, an assurance that the developer benefits from the understanding of data that a business analyst has and that the business analyst can benefit from applications that have been implemented on that common understanding of the purpose of data.

SharePoint: buy the platform, sell the app

In discussions with a few folk regarding SharePoint over the last couple of months I have come to the conclusion that most businesses (and Higher Education is no exception to this) purchase SharePoint on the promises of a slick, shiny demonstration to senior managers (probably at one of those Caribbean 'conferences' I'm always hearing so much about) and the annoying fact that you can, more or less, do anything with SharePoint.

#TEE12 Day 1 roundup: SharePoint BI&dev and awesome Agile estimation

Today I attended the following:

• Keynote
• Creating Self-Service BI Solutions with SharePoint 2010 (ooh on blog and everything!)
• Developing and Managing SharePoint solutions with Microsoft Visual Studio
• Making Agile Estimation Work

Below are the major bits remembered off the top of my head (the transformer is recharging!) To take them one at a time:

Conclusions from #XCRI #CourseData Development Day

A good day was spent examining the major elements of technical implementation at the XCRI-CAP development day in London yesterday. Here are my collected thoughts on the major themes.