Sharepoint - Showing calendar events in multiple calendars in diff't sub-sites - sharepoint

I am trying to show events from a calendar in the main site to a calendar in a sub-site of the main site (or vice-versa)...I can't alter any server files or use custom-built web parts...is there anyway to do this w/ OOTB moss 2007?

Altering Server files is a big no-no anyway, so that's good :-D. YOu could try using SharePoint designer to create a so-called aggregation webpart, pulling data from all sites in the site collection (which of course get security trimmed by sharepoint, so people see only what they are allowed to see).
YOu can create use a DataFormWebPart in SharePoint designer to build an aggregation webpart. This is still ootb, but allows you to configure the datasource: i.e. have the datasource query the entire site collection for calendar items, then display them in a list. Disdplay them in a "new" calendar will be a lot of work though.
There is no way to "copy" or deisgnate specific calendar items to be visible in specific other calendars, this will take custom code.

Not strictly OOTB MOSS 2007, but I recenlty wrote an article about syncing any list using a simple workflow. As a Calendar is just a list it works for that as well and it maintains the Calendar look and feel.
Check it out here, it works great and deals with attachments as well. As it is part of a workflow you can add your own logic easily, e.g. Only sync calendar events that have field 'x' set to 'y'.

I wanted to point out that RSSBus Web Part can handle a task like this with minimal code. This, although not ootb is quite simple and does not require use of SharePoint Designer.
<rsb:import lib="RSSBus.SpsOps"/>
<rsb:set attr="url" value="http://mysharepointsite/subSite/"/>
<rsb:set attr="list" value="Calendar"/>
<rsb:set attr="user" value="someuser"/>
<rsb:set attr="password" value="theirpassword"/>
<rsb:call op="spsListItems">
[[sp:name]]</br>
</rsb:call>
The code above can be placed within the RSSBus Web Part on the main site and through the use of "SpsOps" have access to all lists/items on all sites/subsites.
-S

Related

Using Workflow to Copy Calendar Items Between Sites in Site Collection

I am having problems figuring out a calendar workflow and am beginning to think what I need cannot be done w/out using .NET. I want to copy calendar items up and down between sites.
The site collection structure is Office-->Division-->Branch. There are 5 divisions under the office and multiple branches under each division. Each is a separate site with its own own calendar.
I want to populate a calendar on one site and have the item pushed up or down the site chain to another site calendar. So I need to be able to promote calendar events up AND down between calendars on different sites within the same site collection. Also, I don’t need the whole item copied. I need all fields except one because each site has its own set of check box values for one of the fields.
All my research has indicated this can’t be done without programming and I do not have Visual Studio. I have heard BCS may be a solution but am not sure that we have it. We are using SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Server but many things are not available to me such as Data Sources. One recommendation I got was to have one site (office) and put everything below it as site pages. So divisions and branches would just be pages, not separate sites. However, this seems like it would get out of hand quickly. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
So it looks like my site structure is not optimal as SharePoint lists and libraries do not easily flow between sites. I will need to change the structure so all the divisions and branches are site pages, not sites. This way everything will live in the same site and it will be much easier to move data around via workflow.
In this case, I won't need to move any data between calendars because now I can use one calendar for the office, divisions and branches and create different views to show the required data.

Mysites like page that lists all doc libraries across all SharePoint sites?

We'd like to create a web page that will list all Document libraries across all sharePoint Sites for the user currently accessing the page. We'd also like to offer a all site search for the user. That is all sites they have access to.
We currently do not have Mysites enabled, nor do we want to.
Possilbe to code this?
All site search is easy. If you are using the non-free version of SharePoint 2007 or 2010, then that capability is baked into the product. Users can use the search scopes to search across all content in the SharePoint farm. It will automatically trim search results that users don't have access to.
As for you list of all document libraries, this would probably be too much effort to generate in real time for any non-trivial SharePoint environment. You are most likely going to have to gather this information ahead of time and then display the appropriate summary of the data in a WebPart of some other similar interface. Code to crawl every web application and every site and every sub-site and then every Document Library isn't hard. Actually it is very straightforward. What will be a little tricky is that you will need to collect ACL entries for each of these lists so that you can compare them to the current end user. The real trick is that the ACLs might contain SharePoint Group names and Active Directory group names instead of individual end user names. That will make your reporting task more difficult.

Capital Expenditure application in sharepoint

We got an requirement for implementing captial expenditure lotus notes application in sharepoint. It's having nearly five massive forms with all expense calculations and workflows.
What is the suggested approach in sharepoint to implement this?
I would agree that creating a custom ASP.net/SQL server web app would be the way to go if you have some ASP.net programmers available, though I'd recommend against embedding it via a Page Viewer Web Part. You can integrate ASP.net web apps directly in SharePoint, no embedding required.
If you don't have ASP.net programmers available, you can certainly do it in SharePoint and it may not be painful. The key issues are where you need to store your data and how relational the data needs to be. If the requirement is to store data in a relational DB, it becomes complicated to do it in SharePoint.
On the other hand, if you can imagine recreating your application's data as a collection of Excel spreadsheets, then it will be pretty straightforward to do it in SharePoint. In the simplest scenario, you could do all "development" using the SharePoint web interface. You would create a custom list in a SharePoint site for each expense form, then customize the site's default.aspx page to display a link the newform.aspx for each list. If the wokflows are basic notification/approval types, then you can also attach SharePoint built-in workflows to the lists via the web interface.
If you need custom form layouts, custom workflows and dynamic data filtering, then you could use SharePoint Designer to accomplish a great deal of design and development. Without more information about the existing application and workflows, it's impossible to say exactly how you should do it. But make sure you consider what parts of the existing application are requirements and what parts are just legacy functionality. If you can simplify the application, this is a great opportunity to do it.
While you can do it in SharePoint, it will be painful. You may be better off implementing the application as a stock ASP.net/SQL DB application and embedding it into SharePoint with a Page Viewer Web Part.
You can also skin your custom application to look like SharePoint using one of the SharePoint master pages as a template and link to it from your portal.
For added SharePoint integration, you can use Data View Web Parts or the Business Data Catalog (MOSS only) to query your expenditure application database and embed small reports and key performance indicators throughout your portal.
Alternatively to a Custom web app:
Create custom web controls implementing the forms and kicking off the workflows with custom layout pages to host the controls?
A site definition (just feature to add the pages+layouts at a pinch) to host the created pages "just so" in order to rely on "form1.aspx" being available always.
I would not try to "push" OOTB SharePoint functionality envelope to avoid creating custom code. Easier by far to
If you are going to do extensive workflow work in SharePoint be sure to consider buying an add-on like Nintex workflow or Blackpoint. It is almost always worth the expense over creating workflows with Visual Studio or SharePoint designer.
It's not easy to implement a solution for this in SharePoint, but we have a SharePoint App we're releasing in March 2014 which is a great capital expenditure workflow solution. http://budgetworkflow.com

Sharepoint WebParts

I just finished my first web Part for Sharepoint WSS 3.0 and I'm very excited.
What it does is that just makes a connection to the TFS (team foundation) to get the OPEN and FIXED bugs by Sprint (We actually use SCRUM agile Process). Then takes both values (open & fixed) and puts them in a sharepoint list. A chart is fed with that list (using codeplex's web parts).
In the other side the web part retrieves information about the current team names from the Project Server, it follows the same procedure but it just feeds a Sharepoint list.
Any recommendations on performance or anything else would be much appreciated.
PD. i will set this as a community wiki 'cause there is no correct or wrong answer, just waiting for your feedback =D.
I'm a bit confused... Your webpart populates the list with values from TFS?
If you use a webpart, the list is populated only when someone visits the page and EVERYTIME someone visits the page.
Wouldn't you want to populate your SharePoint list using a console application or a SharePoint timer job that runs every so often?
To go a step further. Use federated search. In SharePoint (MOSS) you can specify locations (content sources) for the search service to index. This data will then be queryable in your sites. Using either custom scopes / customized search queries you can retieve data and then filter / display it on your sites.

Accessing list data from a different site in Sharepoint Designer workflow

Does anyone know if it is possible to Lookup list data from a different site when creating a workflow with Sharepoint Designer 2007? The Define Workflow Lookup dialog only allows you to pick from lists in the current Sharepoint site you are creating the workflow in.
Ideally I'd like to be able to pick from a list in the parent site, or a site from a given URL (eg. http://myserver/mysite)
You cannot do that with OOTB activities. However you can build a custom SharePoint designer activity to do the task you need. We usually create just a call web service activity and then we call a SharePoint we service we need.
Take a look at this CodePlex project for some custom SharePoint Designer activities.
SPDActivities on CodePlex are very useful. However, if your exact requirements are not covered by any of those activies then you may want to consider embedding c# or vb.net code directly into the SharePoint Designer Workflow (Without resorting to Visual Studio).
I wrote a blog article about how to do it exactly at the following location:
http://www.muhimbi.com/blog/2009/12/embed-c-or-vb-code-directly-in.html

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