Opening documents in the client application from Sharepoint Lists - excel

I have created a couple of sharepoint lists, one that uses a lookup on the document library to link multiple documents to a list item. The other list is to create tiled links that link to documents, again in the document library.
I am using Sharepoint as part of Office 365
The problem I have is that opening the documents from these lists open in the browser instead of the client application (usually Excel), the spreadsheets are too complex for the browser based version of Excel so I need them to always open in the client application.
So far, I have set the default open option for the document library (Documents Settings > Advanced Settings) for the master site and subsite to Open in Client application by default; obviously this works for the document library, but doesn't work for the lists.
Searched for ages on this problem and either nobody has it or people that do this aren't bothered by documents opening in the browser. Would be greatful for any help on this, or if you can think of a better way to do it....

You could export list items to excel file (List ribbon -> Export to excel) and then upload that excel file to some document library.
Then, the users would open the excel file from the library and they would need to refresh the data from excel, by clicking Data ribbon -> Refresh All
That is the closest that you can do with opening list items with excel without any programming.
Please note that users will have to be logged in to SharePoint and have the Read permissions in SharePoint list in order to Refresh the data.

Related

Sharepoint 2013 Document last modified date code snippet

I am using sharepoint 2013. I have a page that does not show the document library itself, but has links to documents within it. Next to the link I would like to show the date the document was last modified for each file. See image
The text is not a link, just the PDF is a link to a file with in a document library. They are not all in the same library though, some are on other sharepoint 2013 sites, that I own as well.
Is this even possible? I have been searching for a few days, but have not found anything close to what I am looking to do. Most of what I am finding is related to getting the date in applications outside of sharepoint.
Yes it is possible depending upon the SharePoint api you use and the location of documents.
If using SharePoint JSOM, its possible if all the sites in which documents are stored are is same site collection.
If using SharePoint object model and using correct privileges, there's no limitation whether the documents are is same or different site collections (you may have to use different context objects though)

Connecting existing document library to sharepoint site

I was experimenting with MS Flow in Office 365, trying to automatically extract info from excel files. However, it turns out we made some "design error" in our sharepoint structure.
We have multiple central document libraries that are only linked to the Onedrive for Business environment and not connected to a Sharepoint site. (The latter turns out to be necessary for MS flow.) Is it possible to link existing document libraries to a sharepoint site?
EDITS:
Some background: within onedrive for business we have created multiple document libraries. See the screenshot below (blacked out are the ones we created).
Screenshot of Onedrive for Business "Site Contents"
Using MS flow I want to extract info from some of the Excel sheets in those doc libs. However, when using the wizards, I can only access files in document libraries that are created from a Sharepoint site (mine were apparently created directly in the OnedrivefB environment) or the main document library from OnedrivefB (as shown below; when choosing Onedrive, the File wizard only shows the files in the 'Documents' doc lib as also listed in the previous screenshot. Screenshot from Flow wizard
Elsewhere, I was told I should connect the document libraries we created to a Sharepoint site. But this person couldn't tell me how... Other suggestions are of course welcome as well!
Thanks, J
For completeness:
Step 1 in the wizard, showing sharepoint sites and onedrive for business
Step 2 in the wizard, showing options when choosing for OdfB
Step 3 in the wizard, only showing files from the document library called "Documents" in the first screenshot
A screenshot from one such document library with the Excel I am trying to access
Both OneDrive for Business and Sharepoint sites can be connected to MS Flow. If you are looking for the connection with OneDrive for Business, check the below link for triggers and sample templates
https://us.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/shared_onedriveforbusiness/onedrive-for-business/
Sharepoint -
https://us.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/shared_sharepointonline/sharepoint/
EDIT:
To access an Excel file in an OneDrivefB folder, browse and select the excel using file option. It will list all the folders in your OneDrive library.
.Second screenshot which you attached is sharepoint assets. they cant be linked to OneDrive. It can only be linked to sharepoint sites

Embedding an excel document into an application with excel online

I have been experimenting with excel online shared link to be able to embed an excel document to our internal web site. But this method is not viable because we can't actually make a public link because the data is private.
I was wondering if it was possible to embed an excel document any other way. I can add that we need an excel document with an add-in attached to it. I might have done something wrong but in my test, my add-in didn't show up in the embedded version of the document. I also noted that functionality seemed greatly reduced. Even with read-write permissions, I could input some data but couldn't delete anything which wasn't very useful in our case.
Ref:https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Share-it-Embed-an-Excel-workbook-on-your-web-page-or-blog-from-OneDrive-804e1845-5662-487e-9b38-f96307144081
Our goal is to be able to :
embed excel document into an application.
feed external data into the excel document when opened or on user input (done by an add-in)
user interaction (read-write-delete according to defined locks and column visibility)
save the relevant data to storage (done by an add-in)
save the document to OneDrive and/or to a specific location.
I am wondering if there is any solutions (now or in-progress) that would allow us to have most of the functionality of excel online while being managed by an application.
Possible solutions?:
We might have a partial solution where instead of creating a shared link, we could integrate our application to excel instead of doing thing the other way around. But it doesn't solve how to handle Microsoft accounts required to access the documents.
You'd have to do the heavy lifting in JavaScript I'm afraid and add-ins are out of the question. See a very rudimentary example of how to interact with an embedded Excel file here:
http://www.jkp-ads.com/Articles/embeddedexcel00.asp

PowerView display on SharePoint 2013 without excel services

I've seen people displaying PowerView reports right on the browser (on SharePoint 2013 pages). So it’s more like a within-screen pop-up (like an element that launches within the page). At the moment, when I create powerView excel sheets, they are displayed as files and when I click on the files, they take me to another page on the browser where Excel Services is launched and people can see both the worksheets and the powerView report. I do not want to go to another page and I don’t want to be able to see the worksheet – just a report, launched cleanly (and still interactive).
Two possibilities:
In Excel, there are publishing options that allow you to select which items are visible when viewed via a web part in the browser. So, you can add an Excel services web part to the page, so that users will see just the items you selected.
If you have "PowerPivot for SharePoint" installed, you can publish an excel workbook that contains a data model to a "power pivot gallery" (which is a type of library). Once the workbook is in this special type of library, there will be button available that will create a new PowerView report based on the data in that model. This is a slightly different version of PowerView where the design of the reports and viewing of the reports are all done in the browser, not through Excel.
Though, Power View is being phased out, so perhaps check into Power BI?

Creating an item in a SharePoint Form Library from a SharePoint Designer Workflow

I'm using MOSS (SharePoint 2007) and InfoPath 2007.
I have a Form Library with an attached InfoPath form, and would like to create new items (forms) in this library during a workflow built in SharePoint designer.
I've tried using the "Create List Item" action, but it doesn't assign the correct metadata (the new item looks fine in a view of the list, but can't be used to render the form (the generic "form has been closed" error comes up if you try to view the item)).
I'm not adverse to writing my own custom WFA to do this in .NET if need be, although it'd be nice to find a simpler solution.
Can anyone provide any resources for how to achieve this in SPD, or programmatically? My searches on the topic so far have been unfruitful...
Found the solution to this, thanks to a video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/v/bcnC_XwCcAg&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0
For anyone else out there who (like me) might not be able to watch YouTube content where they need this information, here's the process:
Create IP form
Publish to SP Server (as doc lib)
On document library, change settings:
allow management of content types
display in browser
"Fill out" a blank version of the form and save it to the doc lib with name "template"
Open context menu for "template" form and select Download a Copy
Delete "template" form from document library
Open library in windows explorer
Open Forms dir
Paste downloaded copy of "template" form into the Forms dir (as template.xml)
Go back into doc lib settings
turn off management of content types
change template url to template.xml
press OK to save changes
Go back into advanced settings ago, and turn management of content types back on
In SPD, make a WF which uses Create List Item to put an item in that library
And that's it. Just 12 steps needed to publish an InfoPath form so that it behaves as you'd expect, and any SharePoint developer should be familiar with 12-step programs.

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