I was tasked to create a SharePoint site and enable it for CMIS access from a java application we were developing. Since this was new to me, I wanted to establish a SharePoint to SharePoint connection using CMIS before trying to connect from our java application. Starting with the MSDN documentation and with some “trial and error” I got things to work. There were some “lessons learned” primarily in the area of configuring IIS which are not covered here.
Enabling Content Management Interoperability Service (CMIS)
CMIS is not automatically instantiated on a SharePoint site. It must be created, added to the list of services at the Farm level and then deployed to the selected content SharePoint sites in the Farm. I pulled the information for how to do this from documentation in the msdn document library[1].
There are three steps to get a SharePoint site able to consume or provide CMIS content. It isn’t clear what edition of SharePoint 2010 is required. You can infer that Foundation is sufficient to be a producer and Standard for a consumer.[2]:
- Install CMIS to SharePoint Farm
- Deploy CMIS Connector Solution to SharePoint Content Sites
- Activate CMIS Connector services in each site
Install CMIS
There are two steps to getting the CMIS connector installed to a SharePoint Farm site.
- Install Administrator Toolkit if not already installed
- Add the CMIS Connector solution to the Farm Site
Install Administrator Toolkit
Download and installation instructions for the Administrator Toolkit are located in the msdn library.[3] The instructions basically direct you to download and execute the installation file.
Add CMS Connector Solution to the Farm Site
- Open the “SharePoint 2010 Management Shell” by selecting it from the list of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products in “Start – All Programs.”
- Type the following at the prompt in the power shell:
Add-SPSolution –LiteralPath ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SharePoint 2010 Administration Toolkit\Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) Connectors\spcmis.wsp’. You will get an “Access denied” error if you do not have SPShellAdmin rights.[4]
Deploy CMIS Connector Solution
Implement the CMIS Connector solution in your SharePoint content sites by the following
- Deploy the CMIS solution from the Central Administration web site
- Activate in the CMIS services in each SharePoint content site.
Deploy CMIS Connector Solution
- Open the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration web site.
- Select “System Settings” from the navigation panel on the left side of the page.
- Under “Farm Management” select “Manage farm solutions”
- Click “spcmis.wsp” which should be in the displayed list of Farm Solutions.
The next step requires that the “SharePoint 2010 Administration (SPAdminV4)” service is running. The default startup for this service is “manual”. You can easily start the service by selecting it from the list of services in the Microsoft Management Console.
- Select the SharePoint content sites you want to deploy to and click “Deploy”
The status of “spcmis.wsp” in the list of Farm Solutions should now read “Deployed.”
Activate CMIS Connector Services
There are two “flavors” of the CMIS connector services: Consumer and Producer. Either, both, or neither may be activated on your SharePoint content web site.
To activate the connector services:
- Open your content web site.
- Select “Site Settings” from the “Site Actions” menu.
To activate the CMIS Consumer
– Under “Site Collection Administration” select “Site collection features”
– Click the “Activate” button next to the “Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) Consumer” list item
To activate the CMIS Producer
– Under “Site Actions” select “Manage site features”
– Click the “Activate” button next to the “Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) Producer” list item
Congratulations! The CMIS connector service is now implemented! The next section provides instructions for building a web part to consume information from a CMIS provider.
Implementing the CMIS Consumer Web Part
SharePoint 2010 provides a CMIS Consumer web part that allows you to display the contents of a list from a CMIS provider. This requires that an instance of the Secure Store Service has been implemented.
- Open the page in edit mode and select the “Insert” ribbon under the “Editing Tools” group.
- Select the “Web part” button and select “CMS Connector” from the list of Web Part Categories.
- Select “CMIS Consumer” from the list of Web Parts (it is the only item in the list).
- Add the web part to the page.
- Save the page.
- In the web part, select the highlighted text “…open the tool pane…” to enter the necessary connection items.
- Under “Specify WSDL Address” enter
| https://mysiteurl/_vti_bin/CMISSoapwsdl.aspx |
Where “mysiteurl” is the link to the SharePoint web site providing the data, armws2008sp-01:2397, for example
- Check “WS-Security Required” and select “Basic” or “Digest” which should match your SharePoint provider’s authentication. That authentication is set in the Provider site’s Central Administration web site and should reflect that set in IIS Manager for IIS authentication. I’ve only tried “Basic” to date.
- Click the button “Get Repository List.” You may be prompted for user credentials that have access to the site. If all is correct you will see a list of Document Libraries and Lists in the “Select Repository” drop down list.[5]
- Select a list or library from the list.
- Click “Apply”
- Click “Ok”
If all went as planned, you should be able to see the list information in your new web part!
Hi,
I have been struggling to configure CMIS on my test Sharepoint machine.
All is set as per instruction. While trying to use web part , I keep receiving error 401:Unauthorized from CMIS repository interface.
Any direction/suggestion would be highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance