I am building a directory tool that will list entries for technical support contacts and listed by its appropriate company. My end goal is to allow end users to be presented with 2 simple inputs, a drop down with the list of companies and a text input to enter the name of the technical team they would like to reach. Sharepoint has made this a nightmare.
Since my server is on MSS 3.0 I decided to use a form webpart where I have added created the 2 input (dropdown and text input). I made the parameters to point to the input and added them to the filters and finally made the webpart connection.
I was able to get as far as making a sucessful filter for the technical team but as soon as I try to filter by client the results are very sporadic and mostly incorrect. I play around with the list filter in Sharepoint designer 2007 tried to group the filters together, tried changing the AND/OR in every possible setting but no luck.
Decided to push it by creating a column named blank that basically had empty values. The idea behind that was to allow end user to leave the technical team input blank and show all entries for the company. I thought somehow it would have maybe solve my sporadic issue but instead made it more complex.
At this point I can probably live without being able to search with blank results but I need to be able to at least filter by company and technical teams. At this point any sort of help is appreciated, been at this for a few weeks and my project is due last week so I am pretty much desperate to solve this problem.
For those that may have a similar problem I have found a work around to this problem. I decided to use the ASP.net User Control and this works much better than the form webpart and provides much better results.
Here a link that I found which help me get me on the track:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdesigner/archive/2007/03/05/asp-net-controls-filter-the-data-view.aspx
Related
I have a document library set up with multiple different categories of document, and I'm using a metadata column to differentiate between them.
I want to be able to display two different document library web part on a page for different categories of file side by side. This is simple for one category, I just set up a list view filtered by the metadata column, but when I add a second web part alongside the first, it breaks the first one.
I have no idea why this is happening, but it seems like SharePoint isn't happy with pulling two sets of data from the same document library.
When I am editing the web parts, I can get them to both display the documents I want, but then when I click save, the first web part empties.
Not sure what other information would be useful for diagnosing or helping with the problem, so if I haven't given enough detail let me know. I am familiar with SPD as well as developing through the web interface, so if this needs a more complex solution that's fine with me!
Having spent some more time playing around with this, it struck me that I could probably achieve what I wanted using something other than a Document web part, and I was right.
Instead of using the somewhat inflexible document web part, I created a content query web part which only searched within the document library from my site, and filtered by the metadata column.
This way I can create as many queries as I like and they don't interact with each other in weird ways. It also has the advantage of being significantly easier to customise the output without needing to resort to SharePoint Designer.
Content Queries are the answer!
I have a basic knockoutjs project loading data from a SharePoint 2013 list scenario. Getting data and displaying data is easy, the problem that I'm running into is on the edit mode displaying the proper control. Everything should not be a textbox. This means the people picker control to dropdownmenus to calendar controls.
MSFT has some pretty good documentation on using the client side people picker control here"http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj713593.aspx
The problem that I have is calling this control inside my viewmodel.
Setting the value of the control doesn't look difficult courtesy of this blog post: http://www.sharepointcolumn.com/sp2013-setting-people-picker-value-in-newform-aspx/
I attempted to looking into computed values, but that doesn't seem to work. Does anyone have a blog post that I skipped over? The closest related post that I can find: http://yetanothersharepointblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/working-with-sharepoint-lookup-columns-in-knockout-js/
Lastly since it seems that I'm the only one doing this, does anyone think that I should not be reinventing the wheel with my forms and should just link each item to the appropriate SharePoint list item in edit or display view? I suppose that would be easier.
From a SharePoint Professional to another, I would highly recommend you to do that.
Just redirect the user to the item edit/display item page an let SharePoint take the leash of how to handle UI form elements.
Because, assume that you implement your custom form, what if the user decides to add one more site column to the list? Will you update your code to support another field?
From my personal experience with the beast I've come to the conclusion that structural implementation over already existent functionality tends to go wrong.
Also, if you have some kind of listing of items custom made and you want to provide editing, try to do something opening a pretty SP.UI.ModalDialog, its elegant and you use the sharepoint to do the work for you.
But it's just an advise.
The scenario - I am building a site to house a number of reports - thirty or so subsites under a main web for different report categories, and several libraries in each site, one for each separate report. In total, about 600 reports (libraries) across the thirty report categories (sites). This design has been decided on, and cannot change.
I plan/want to have a single advanced search page to search all the reports, using various custom metadata columns. That bit's easy, I can do that out of the box.
One of the most important search criteria is which report on which to search, of which, as I mentioned, there are many. The dictate is to make the report type added "invisibly" - they will select the report category, then the report type, and THEN get presented with the search page. The search should "know" which report is being searched on.
Scope selection is not a viable option, as there's too many libraries, and more will be added as new reports are created.
Now, I can get the results I want in the results if I add the "u" parameter to the URL as in;
results.aspx?k="RunDate=1/23/13"&U=http://site/report_type/library"
(address left unescaped for clarity)
My challenge is finding a way to feed that parameter TO the advanced search, and get it to tack it on to the end of its generated query.
I'm confident it can be done with only a little fidgeting to the webpart, but I need a bit of a shove in the right direction.
Or, as always, if y'all have a more brillianter idea, I could do that.
Now, I have a second issue where the different reports have their own varying set of metadata columns, and they only want the RIGHT ones to show up for each report, but one crisis at a time.
EDIT - upon further research, it seems I can't extend the advanced search webpart, as it's a sealed type. Has anyone either a way around that, or have a third-party advanced search page that I CAN crack into?
I was able to find a solution to this issue by overriding the JavaScript function NavigateTo(url) which is responsible for the redirect. My solution can be found here
What you are actually asking about is a contextual search box, as the u parameter resembles the contextual search scope.
I'm not sure that the standard search box can be configured the way you want it to, so it always adds the query string u=<current url>. I think you will have to resort to some (even if simple) code.
An example you can find here: Create a SharePoint Contextual Search Box in a Content Editor Web Part.
Of course you could do the same thing with server side code, but as you only want to add a querytring parameter, JavaScript should be enough.
I've got a tricky situation I'm trying to determine the best way to solve. I'm a VS developer who is learning SharePoint so it's a little frustrating to me when what I am trying to accomplish could easily be done with code and a db.
I have three lists, a parent and two children list that are linked through lookup columns. The client actually wanted everything in one list but due to SharePoint column type limitations I had to split the data into the three lists, there are over 300 fields. The client wants to see all the lists together in one view and be able to filter and edit groups of items.
I have successfully created a new data source linking the lists and can display that on one of my pages to view. After some research however I have learned that I can't create a datasheet view from this linked view due to limitations in the Office componets that SP uses. Which makes sense.
The business need is for the client to filter the three lists based on criteria they select from either list A AND list B and list C to get a group of items, they make the updates and save the changes back to the 3 lists. They prefer to do this in datasheet view because this mimics the excel spreadsheet that they are currently using that this website will replace. They will potentially be updating between 1-30 items at a time using this, which is why they prefer the drag and copy functionality.
I was thinking of two options: trying to create some kind of custom web part that has a gridview of all the columns in edit mode that they can filter down to their items and make their changes. Then I would have to loop through the fields and make updates programmatically. I also saw on this site jQuery.sheet, that looks like it may be a good solution if I go this route instead of gridview.
Or have a modal window with the columns listed, have the user select what they want to filter to, then redirect to a page that shows the three lists in their own DSVs. The user would have to make updates in the three separate views. Then I would use workflows to synchronize the lists after they had made their changes.
I always end up trying to do things programmatically since I am still largely unfamiliar with SP and only seem to hit its limitations instead of its strengths. Has anyone tried to do something similar to this? Or do you have any suggestions as to the best way to accomplish this? Best practices? I appreciate all thoughts and comments! FYI I've also posted this on the MS SP forums as well to cast a wider net...
Thanks,
Sabrina
In this case, you are better off going with a custom solution. A webpart would be an excellent choice for delivering your custom interface.
A dataview webpart will do the job, but if you feel comfortable with the jQuery solution it would make for a nicer interface.
In your code, treat the lists as you would a database and isolate it from the logic and interface code within the webpart.
This should be a really really simple thing, but for some reason it is just eluding me.
I want a Sharepoint page which will have a drop down list that is tied to a database lookup table.
When an item is selected and they click a GO button, I want it to update a gridview that is also on the page.
I'm looking for a simple how to - while assuming I'm a sharepoint idiot. BTW, I am using the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Designer.
Thanks,
Edit:
My need is actually very simple. I want to filter the results of a query using a drop down list. This used to be called a master - detail relationship.
For example, my regular data has school name, application name, and how long the application was running. Because there could be a hundred applications per school and there are 60+ schools, I only want to show one schools information at a time.
So, I want to put a drop down list at the top of the screen which contains the list of schools. When one is selected, the gridview should be updated to reflect the new schools information.
Chris.
I currently use a drop down tied to one sharepoint list to filter a dataview of another sharepoint List.
The instructions are here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2007/03/05/asp-net-controls-filter-the-data-view.aspx
I'm not exactly sure of the specific needs here, but it seems that you are trying to stretch a bit beyond what Sharepoint Designer is well suited to. To look up data, you do have access via the dataview web part, which is here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA100948041033.aspx
However your filtering needs may prevent you from using this. If you want to do it .net without knowing too much about MOSS, you can use the "son of smartpart" (google it) which allows you to host standard .net user controls in webparts.
Hope this helps!