Layer2 Cloud Connector for SharePoint & Office 365 - Version History

 

The Cloud Connector for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Office 365 takes your local line-of-business data and documents to your cloud-based or any other hosted SharePoint - easy to connect, secure, always up-to-date, and bi-directional, if required. More information and download here.

 

Newer versions

 

Please find the current Layer2 Cloud Connector Release Notes News Feed here for subscription.

 

 

Version 5.0.21.5 (outdated)

 

Fixes:

 

  • When creating folders in SharePoint libraries, an error occurred stating that the property "CheckOutType" has not been loaded. "The property or field 'CheckOutType' has not been initialized..."

Changes:

 

  • Optimized error handling and reporting for unexpected Windows Service termination.

 

Version 5.0.21.3

 

Fixes:

 

  • When accessing SharePoint libraries with versioning enabled and no enforced checkout, one upload has created four different new versions. This could lead to unexpected quota exceedance and issues with workflows and notifications. Now two new versions are created, one for the file upload and one for the metadata updates. Due to limitations with CSOM it is still not possible to create one new version only.
  • In some cases while updating data on SharePoint a NullReferenceException was triggered.
  • The settings of the FILENAME filter of the File System Provider included filtering of directory names. Now directory names are no longer filtered.
  • The Odata Provider created an error when a value could not bee parsed. This has been replaced with a warning and using of the default value.
  • Creating appointments on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 could result in an error about the StartTimeZone-field not being loaded.

Changes: 

 

  • Pro Edition now allows Enterprise Edition features starting with January 2015. Customers with Pro Edition and valid Software Assurance have a free upgrade option.
  • If SharePoint returns a "Request too big" error, the current server objects will be loaded and updated one by one automatically.

 

Version 5.0.21.0

 

Fixes:

  • Minor memory leaks fixed. 
  • The log view in the Connection Manager is now refreshing during a synchronization run. 
  • Shareware restrictions have been adjusted. 
  • Logging to the Windows Eventlog or to email will no longer create multiple entries for a single error. 

 

Changes:

  • The setup files are now signed to avoid warnings.

 

Version 5.0.19.5

 

New:

  • The default log configuration now contains examples to use Windows Event Log instead of file log and send email alerts in case of issues.

Fixes:

  • Layer2 Data Provider for Exchange: When reading appointments in some cases the Exchange Web Service would return the error "The recurrence pattern’s FirstDayOfWeek property must be specified".

Changes:

  • When Exchange returns with a ErrorInternalServerTransientError, the Layer2 Exchange Data Provider will automatically retry to load the remaining items.

 

Version 5.0.19.3

 

Fixes:

  • The "Email" connection-string parameter for mailbox-impersonation has not been recognized. Now fixed. 
    • Changes:

     

    • It is no longer possible to have two different versions of the Cloud Connector installed side-by-side. If setup encounters another edition of the Cloud Connector, it will automatically be uninstalled prior to the installation.
    • When executing the Cloud Connector setup for .NET 4.5 on a System which does not support running the Microsoft Management Console in CLR 4, the setup will show an error message stating that the .NET 3.5 edition of the Cloud Connector needs to be installed. This is applicable for Windows 7 / Windows-Server 2008 RC2 or older.
    • The SharePoint fields fAllDayEvent and fRecurrence are no longer marked as unsupported fields. That means the fields can be used e.g. for SharePoint to SharePoint or SQL to SharePoint connections. Exchange to SharePoint is still not supported.

     

    Version 5.0

     

    • sales@layer2.pro to request the license change before installation. You can simply use installer to upgrade. All data and settings are kept.

Version 4.8.0.2

 

  • Issues with the calculated field CCConnectionName and CCEntityName and specific providers like OData fixed.

 

Version 4.8.0.1

 

New:

  • Additional authentication method supported for sales@layer2.pro in case of any questions.

    New:

    • Microsoft Windows 8 compatible.
    • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 compatible.
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2012 compatible.
    • Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Preview and Office 365 Preview compatible.

    • Calendar synchronization support for Layer2 SharePoint Provider added.

    • ADFS authentication support for Office365 with username/password or using integrated windows authentication added to Layer2 SharePoint Provider.

    • New option 'Disable Operations' introduced for disabling selected operations like insert, update or delete for the current data entity. This new option can now be used in data aggregation scenarios, e.g. syncing XML based news feed, twitter feeds etc. - without deleting old entries.

    Fixes: 

    • Order of log files was not correct in GUI. Issue fixed.
    • Entity names are not updated on mapping screen after renaming of entity. Issue fixed.
    • Odata select statement is not visible. Issue fixed.
    • Connection string verification does not work as expected for the providers without select statement. Issue fixed.
      • Mapping screen is not auto updated after connection data changed. Issue fixed.
      • File System Provider network share access problem fixed.
      • Sharepoint Provider had a limitation of the synchronization execution duration of about 10 hours. Synchronizations longer than 10 hours are aborted with "Remote server returned 403 forbidden." Issue fixed.
      • Sometimes log entries in GUI differs from the log file. Issue fixed.
      • Add mapping button is lost after switching between auto mapping and manual mapping. Issue fixed. 

    Changes:

    • Sharepoint user fields are excluded from auto mappings, but can be mapped manually if required.
    • A Cookie Manager shortcut added directly to the Connection Manager.
    • Cookie Manager link removed from programs menu shortcuts.
    • For uni-directional connections conflict resolution and winning entity parameters are removed in mapping screen.
    • Visual improvements made on mapping screen and with logging.
    • Preview window appearance improved

Version 3.5.2

New:

  • SharePoint 2013 Preview release fully supported now.

Fixes:

  • Issue with starting the Windows service for background update in UI fixed now.
  • Uninstallation issue fixed. Service entry removed from registry correctly now.

 

Version 3.5.1

 

Fixes:

  • In some specific cases a "404 NOT FOUND" error was coming up when synchronizing documents SharePoint to SharePoint - FIXED
  • In some cases a "Could not cast to DBNull" error was coming up when synchronizing Documents SharePoint to SharePoint  - FIXED
  • In some cases an "Object reference" error was coming up when synchronizing Documents SharePoint to SharePoint - FIXED

Known Issues:

  • While synchronizing any data source with SharePoint 2013 lists works great with this version, there is a known issue with synchronizing documents or files with SharePoint 2013 / Office 365 Preview libraries to be fixed with next version.

 

Version 3.4

 

New Features:

  • XML Provider with XPath support included to connect to and query any file- or web-based XML data (readonly). See samples sales@layer2.pro. 
    We will help you as soon as possible to meet your requirements.

Known issues:

  • Calendar type of list is not supported because of CSOM issue with End Date. As a workaround custom lists can be used with calendar view to sync date / time-based information.
  • There is a SharePoint limit for lookup fields using the default view allitems.aspx. As a workaround create your own view and connect, that works great.
  • Attachments are not synced with lists.
  • Folders are not fully supported with SharePoint lists. See above for scope option to workaround.
  • Managed Metadata is not supported at this time.
  • SharePoint metadata like created, last modified, user information is modified during sync.
  • SharePoint lookups are not "translated" between different systems.
  • SharePoint user or group fields are not "translated" between different systems.

 

Version 3.0

  • Connection Manager comes with GUI now as Microsoft Management Console snapp-in. You can continue to edit the XML-based connection files, if required. We advise to use the new UI.
  • Support for Open Data protocol, e.g. to more flexible access SAP, Dynamics CRM etc.

 

Version 2.3 - 2011-10-10

 

  • Primary keys can be case sensitive now.
  • In some configurations bi-directional connection was forced instead of unidirectional. This is fixed in the current release.
  • SQL Azure is fully supported now.

 

Version 2.0 - 2011-09-06

 

  • Bi-directional replication is supported now (if supported by data source). Please simply remove the data entity type (source/destination) or set to "bidirectional" to activate this feature.
    Please note: Bi-directional is the default connection type starting with this release.
  • See manual for conflict resolution options, e.g. on field level.
  • Mapping of primary keys is no longer needed. But both data entities must continue to have primary keys.

 

Version 1.2 - 2011-08-15​

 

  • An issue with workflow fields in destination list was fixed.
  • There is an unfixed issue with lists using lots of fields, especially a large number of calculated fields. It may cause "Server Error 400" in some cases. Please adjust batch size in this case down to some items only, to give SharePoint time to recover. By default is: BatchWriteItems=5000

 

Version 1.1 - 2011-07-15

 

  • Authentication issues with alias domains are fixed with this version. You could not authenticate with V1.0, if using alias domains (not ???.sharepoint.com). Now you can add an additional Realm option to connection string in this case that contains the original domain for authentication:
    Realm=https://myOriginalDomain.sharepoint.com
    That fixes the authentication issue.

 

Version 1.0 - First production release

 

  • A Windows Service is provided to operate your background updates automatically without any restrictions. Please note: When changes are made to the configuration files, the service has to be restarted. Alternatively you can force the connection service to run as application in foreground for better testing.
  • Office 365 Cookie Manager is installed with "Complete Installation" option only. It os not required to establish a connection to Office 365. Please use Authentication="Office365" with user name and password instead of cookie based login. 
  • All field mapping is done by field names via XML. The SharePoint INTERNAL column names are used for mapping (not column titles). See log mapping check in log files for more information. In case of database connections, please use aliases in the SQL query or view (e.g. select myField as myAlias from myTable) to use the auto-mapping feature - or map columns manually.
  • A "primary key" is required on both sides, data source and destination, e.g. a customer ID or SharePoint item ID. It can be a combination of multiple fields / columns (e.g. contact full name and company). In most cases (including SharePoint) it will be detected automatically.
  • Primary keys must be mapped. Example: A primary key "ID" in a SharePoint data source list can be mapped to a column "SourceID" (integer) in the SharePoint destination list in the connection settings file.

  • You have to use the so called invariant name to declare a provider in the configuration file as data entity property (see your machine.config for installed providers). Typically the follwing providers are used:
    Layer2.SharePoint.Provider ... comes with the Cloud Connector to connect to SharePoint 2010 via CSOM (Client Side Object Model)
    System.Data.Odbc ... the .NET Framework Data Provider for Odbc used to connect via ODBC
    System.Data.OleDb ... the .NET Famework Data Provider for OleDb used to conenct via OLEDB
    System.Data.OracleClient ... the .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle used to connect to Oracle database
    System.Data.SqlClient ... the .NET Famework Data Provider for SqlServer used to connect to Microsoft SQL Server

  • Calendar lists are not supported yet because of an currently unsolved Microsoft CSOM issue.

  • User / Group columns that cannot be resolved at the destination system can cause circular updates. Please exclude those fields from auto-mapping.
  • Be careful using lookups in data destination. Item IDs in source list and destination list can be different. SharePoint has no API to create new items with a defined item ID.
  • There is an unsolved authentication issue with URLs that use an alias instead of the original namespace. That is fixed in V1.1.

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