Deployment Guide – imDocShare app for SharePoint Server 2013

This deployment guide assumes that the end user has the appropriate level of permissions to access and add/remove solution (.wsp files) from the root site collection. If you do not have these levels of permissions, please contact your farm administrator and ask for Root site collection Administrator access. Please also make sure that Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service is enabled and running on the server. Please see our pre-requisite documentation for more info.

This guide is meant to cover the deployment process of the imDocShare Visual WebParts Solution, specifically for designed for SharePoint 2013 On-Premises. If you would like further assistance with using and configuring the individual WebParts, please see our documentation entitled “imDocShare WebParts – Power User Guide”.

Note: imDocShare Visual WebParts are not compatible with SharePoint Online or SharePoint On-Prem 2016 and later. We provide a more up to date SPFx (SharePoint Framework) package for these environments. Site Collection Libraries MUST be able to host JSON and js files or else deployment will fail. Any security measures that block Popups or iFrames must be turned off as our authentication uses these resources.

Supported Browsers:

  • Microsoft Edge
  • Google Chrome (latest released version)
  • Mozilla Firefox (latest released version plus immediate previous version)
  • Apple Safari (latest released version)
  • Internet Explorer 11 (limited support only. IE11 Protected Mode is not supported)

Not Supported Browsers:

  • Internet Explorer 10
  • Internet Explorer 9
  • Internet Explorer 8
  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Internet Explorer 6

Note: Please ensure that both your site collection and Farm server are using HTTPS to serve site collection pages and also retrieve content from the server. If there is a discrepancy between HTTP and HTTPS, our webpart asset retrieval will not work as the network requests will be blocked by default.

We offer two different solution types for our deployment: a farm solution and a sandbox solution. There is no difference in the functionality of the two solutions; The main difference lies in how and where our app will be deployed.

Farm solution will deploy our code assets to the file system of the server that it is deployed on. A typical deploy location may look something like this:

https://{your-SharePoint-Tenant}/_layouts/15/imDocShareFarm/assets/images/folderIcons

You may recognize the _layouts designation which will be the source of the app code. From there it will be deployed across all the site collections that you need to use it through the SharePoint Central Administration deployment process.

In contrast, the sandbox solution will deploy assets to a direct location inside a SharePoint library of the site collection you plan to use imDocShare. The deploy location will look something like this:

https://{your-SharePoint-Tenant}/SiteAssets/imDocShare/CDN/assets/images/folderIcons/

We generally recommend using the Farm Solution as it avoids many permission-related issues during usage. For example, users will require permission to view the site collection where imDocShare is deployed but will ALSO need permission to access the library where our SiteAssets are deployed. The farm solution does not require additional permission as the Assets are loaded from a _layouts directory.

Farm Solution

Our Visual Webpart solution is to be deployed using the SharePoint Management Shell. Simply navigate to the location where our imDocShareFarm.wsp file and Install.ps1 file are located.

Firstly, please edit the install.ps1 file which specifies the absolute path where the WSP file can be found. Replace the path with your own. Run the install.ps1 file and this will deploy and activate the solution. Now, open up SharePoint Central Administration where you can view and confirm the deployment. Navigate to Site Settings > Site Collection Features  where you can see the imDocShare feature that has been deployed. You must activate the feature on all site collections where you would like to use imDocShare. After the feature has been activated, the process of adding / removing webparts should be the same across both solution types.

Sandbox Solution

Our Visual Webpart solution is to be deployed via the Solution manager in the site collection where you are aiming to load the webparts. Once you are logged in as an Admin user (must have permission to deploy and activate solution files), navigate to the Site Settings page of the site collection. Click on Solutions as indicated below.

You can navigate to the Site Settings page by clicking the Cog icon at the top right-hand corner of the browser

On the solution page, you will see the option to “Upload Solution” in the top left part of the ribbon. Please click this and navigate to where our imDocShare.wsp file is located on your system. When the upload completes, you will receive a dialog where you can “Activate” the solution. Please click activate to automatically activate all the Webpart features.

Now, imDocShare has been deployed. You will be able to create a new page in this site collection and add an imDocShare webpart. Once deployment is complete, the process of adding / removing webparts should be the same across both solution types.

Licensing Note

Once the deploy is successful, please navigate to the location specified below where the app assets are deployed. Take the imDocShareLicenseKey.txt file provided and simply drop the file into this location. This should now enable your imDocShare license with the specific features you have requested. For more information on licensing, please consult our Power User Guide.

As Farm Solutions deploy to the server file system, this may differ depending on the version of Sharepoint and the server but generally your path will resemble the following:

C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions15TEMPLATELAYOUTSimDocShareFarmassetsimagesfolderIcons

Note: Site Collection Libraries MUST be able to host JSON and JS files or else deployment will fail.

Note: Our Authentication uses iFrame popups by default. Any security measures that block Popups or iFrames must be turned off as our authentication uses these resources. However, if this is an issue, we do have a configuration option that can change the redirect behavior to full-page redirect instead of popup. Please see our “Power User Guide” in the Authentication section for more information.

Adding the WebParts

Navigate to the page where you want to add the webpart and click “Edit”.

This can be found under the cog icon in the top right-hand corner of the browser.

Click within the box you would like to add the webpart to and click “Insert” and “Web Part”.

imDocShare WebParts should appear under the “iManage Webparts” folder in the list of categories as shown below.

For the farm solution, the folder should be named “imDocShare”

Once you have chosen the webpart, click add and you should be able to see it appear on your page. By default, it should show the message “Please input your iManage Configuration Object”.

To read more about using and configuring webparts, please see our guide entitled “imDocShare WebParts - Power User Guide”

Note: Make sure that the page created for the webpart is specifically a “webpart page” instead of “wiki page,” which is the default option. Clicking “new” to create a new page will default to wiki page. Using wiki pages to host webparts may yield some unintended issues which we cannot control.

Note for Farm Solution: You may notice that the farm Solution has less types of webparts compared to the Sandbox solution. The farm solution has only 3 webpart types while the Sandbox solution may have 4-6. However, the farm solution is not missing any features.

In the Farm solution, we have consolidated all viewer webparts into a universal viewer that can be converted to any other view such as Treeview or RecentDocs view. Simply change the configuration to display all views that we support.

Occasionally, we may provide an update package that improves functionality or adds new features to the imDocShare product. In this case, users will need to re-deploy their solution file (WSP) using the same steps as deploying it for the first time. Note that this process should not disturb webparts that have already been set up using our previous build. However, if you are switching between our Sandbox and Farm solution, this will, unfortunately, render your previous webparts non-operational.

Please be aware that there may be invisible webparts on existing page webpart pages. These invisible web parts are created when a user does not finish the set-up process of a new webpart. This may cause authorization issues because invisible webparts are also loading code. You can delete these webparts by navigating to Site contents à Site Pages à and click on the page that you wish to check. Once there, go to properties, and click the link “open webpart page in maintenance view”.

Sandbox Solution

Navigate to Site Settings > Solutions page as you have during the initial deploy. Simply deactivate and then delete the previous .wsp file from your list of deployed solutions. Then, upload the newest WSP file that we have provided. Please be sure to click activate when the option is available. No other action needs to be taken.

Note: Site Collection Libraries MUST be able to host JSON and js files or else deployment will fail. Any security measures that block Popups or iFrames must be turned off as our authentication uses these resources.

Farm Solution

Open SharePoint Central Administration and navigate to Site Settings > Manage Farm Solutions on this server. On this page you will see a list of all installed solution files. Select imDocShare and you will be able to see an option to “Retract” the solution. Once you confirm the retraction, you may have to wait several minutes depending on how many site collections that it has been applied to. Once it is confirmed that the solution was successfully retracted, then you will have the option to delete it.

Now, you can follow the same steps for deploying a farm solution earlier in this document to deploy the updated files.