In 2011, I started User Managed Solutions LLC, a company dedicated to helping “makers” / “citizen developers” make the most of SharePoint.
That same year, Microsoft released Office 365, and naturally my activity evolved to encompass the whole platform, now commonly known as Microsoft 365.
In this blog I share best practices and tips on SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Lists, the Power Platform, and the other members of the 365 family.
Path to SharePoint... and Beyond! 
I really like your “The Html Calculated Column” tips, and I wondered how to do something a bit more extreme.
I have a web page that contains a large table with 19 columns and a few dozen rows. It is filled with links and created via JavaScript. My problem is that if one of my colleagues needs to add a new row, they need to know how to get access to the host, and then either use CVS to track changes or risk stomping on each others changes.
What I want is to have a SharePoint list that contains the information needed to calculate the table, so that adding a new row is just adding a new item to the list. Then, I would want a view with a CEWP with the JavaScript to read the data from the list, and replace the view with the table.
More, since my table is a bunch of quick links to the hundreds of environment deployment pages we need to manage, it defeats the purpose of the table to have any page real estate wasted on normal SharePoint navigation. So, I want the JavaScript to “display=none” all of the SharePoint content on the page except for the top navigation line, and I want to move the view selector into the top line – so that users can still switch to the normal list view and add/edit rows.
Any suggestions? Feel free to say “you are nuts” 🙂
Hello,
I am working on something alittle more advanced I was wondering if you had any ideas.
I am currently using the “Room and Equipment Reservation Template” from Microsoft.
I have added more columns to fit my need such as name and such.
Currently when you open a new reservation, we can choose a start date and end date to reserve a resource which creates one reservation.
Is there any way that we can creat multiple reservations from the same reservation?
Maybe we add a field for 2nd Reservation? That would make it so Scheduling of resources is not redundant.
OR maybe could I add checkbox for “another reservation”, and if that is checked then it will automatically open a new reservation with name and stuff filled in all we would have to do is set the sate and time.
Sornry for the long post.
Thanks for any responce!
Sorry Jeremy, I don’t know much about the Microsoft templates.
You may be able to add a field for a second reservation, but then why not a third, etc. It’s difficult to know where to stop.
I think starting a new reservation through a workflow is a better idea. But is it worth the effort?
Thanks!
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Christophe:
This is a GREAT site.
I am trying to add a JS tool tip to a customer webpart, so that when someone hovers over a document title or list title a description of the document appears. Have you got any idea how I could go about designing this?
Thanks.
Rachael: I’d recommend that you start with Peter Allen’s site, as he has several posts on this topic, including live demos:
http://www.bitsofsharepoint.com
EndUserSharePoint.com would also be a good resource, and I think Peter reused some of their scripts.
Hi Christophe,
Is there any possibility or workarounds available to make certain columns read only in a Custom List?. I’am basically thinking about a solution to control colum editing for certain users/groups without using SPD. Can this be done through jQuery?—i dont know..:).
Your thoughts please..
Thanks & Regards,
Sam
Sam, this can be done with plain JavaScript in an edit form. However, your users will always have other options to update the column (datasheet view, Web Services).
Christophe, WoW, that is a great news. Truly appreciate if you can share some reference links or scripts with instructions which you always do to try the same..
This article is a good start to understand the difference between “disabled” and “readonly”:
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/forms/_INPUT_DISABLED.html
Then search the Web for scripts that use the “disabled” attribute.
Thank you so much Christophe. Let me search for more on the subject and share here for all our folks.
Cheerz,
Sam
Hi Christophe,
I am trying to export color coded list to excel. The standard export doesn’t export the color code along with the list. Is there any way to do it?
Thanks for your help,
Hari
Hello,
I am trying to figure out how to handle a calculation for a KPI that needs to display server uptime by month as a percentage.
Currently have Excel worksheet with one row for each day. One column is “total outage minutes”. This is manually entered from one or more server downtime events. Another column calculates the uptime percentage: if there was a 2 minute outage then it gives a result of 99.86% for that day (1438 minutes up out of 1440 minutes in a day). It also has a calculated cell that gives the total average for all days in the month. Also, if there were separate outages, someone manually adds the two and enters them into the cell for that day.
This system is being replaced with a sharepoint list, so there could be days with one or more events (rows) that contain outage information – submitted by individuals who may not know about other outages for that day. There will also be days with no outage information (no list items created).
Having a hard time understanding how to calculate the average monthly uptime, because my KPI average only runs against the data (rows) that exist in the list, it doesn’t account for the rest of the days during the month when no downtime events occur. In Excel, this was just a row where “0” was manually entered for that date. The goal is to have this information fully automated, not using Excel, and, not have a person manually enter a row of data for each day that did not have an outage. (And the outage events are actually populated by workflows running off of forms that have the outage minutes tallied by separate departments.)
The averaging problem: if in a given month there are three downtime events (for simplicity, say they are 2 minutes each) , the KPI averages 99.86%: (99.86 * 3) /3 but over a 30 day period (where 27 days had 100% uptime) the average should be 99.986. The number must be accurate to the ten-thousandths decimal point. Also, not all months have 30 days, so how is that handled?
The best I have been able to come up with is to sum the _outage_ minutes for the month and set a KPI target of 22 minutes (there are 43200 minutes in a 30-day month, and the goal is 99.95% uptime. 99.95% of 43200 is 43178 minutes.) This solution doesn’t present the data required by the execs, and it doesn’t dynamically adjust for 28,29, or 31 day months.
We have basic-intermediate SharePoint Designer expertise. I was also wondering if this can be handled by Performance Point/Dashboard Designer, which I have heard will be released free with SharePoint SP3.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Hi Christophe –
This is a fantastic site overall and I love those HTML calculated column and Traffic Lights stuff.
I have a puzzle to solve.
I have a List titled Obligations Tracker. Basically it is a Custom Issues List with a calculated column that returns three states ” Open Obligations”, Closed Obligations and “Overdue Obligations”. I am facing the same problem like others as, SharePoint does not allow using COUNTIF function.
Here is what I want to do. I want to count the number of occurences of Open Obligations, Closed Obligations and Overdue Obligations in the Calculated column and use it to display a traffic lights in a KPI dashboard.
I am stuck as, I cannot move forward without getting a workaround to Count these occurences. I was unsuccessful in using the Count Related feature in the Look Up option.
Any thoughts, ideas will be apreciated.
Tx. Ramesh
I resolved it using a column for turning text to numbers and then using th sum feature in the KPI List
Hi Chris,
I’ve implemented your calculated column, adding the code to the formula box and adding the script to the CEWP, and other than the text being concatentated, the value is not being shown in bold if the appropriate field has manager in it.
I’ve also tried to access your latest version of the code but it keeps requesting a login which I’ve not got. Please could you help I need to implement a RAG for a WSS site and this seems the simplest way of doing it – if I could figure out why you code doesn’t work on our system.
Thanks
David Hughes
I have implemented the RAG status in my List and it works fine. I had to tweak it to my requirments, though. Thanks Christophe for the wonderful insights. Ramesh
We are converting from Lotus Notes to Sharepoint in the beginning stages. We created a new document list of Medical Abbreviations from an existing database by importing the documents through Excel.
We have attached a Workflow for approval when a new document is placed in the list.
We need to mark the existing, imported documents as approved already and have not been able to find anywhere how one might do this.
Is this possible?
Thanks
Suzanne Parrish
I have a workflow that sends out an email when an item changes. I want to add a process to that email that lets the receiver click on a link (or something) in the email, and updates a list date field with today’s date. Is this do-able?
I could create and link to an infopath form, but that form would only have one field, so it seems wasteful.
I thought I could create a ‘dummy’ workflow tied to the list and only runs when requested, and when it runs it updates that field with today’s date. But I can’t figure out how to get the workflow to run within outlook…can’t figure out a link to it.
Christophe! We love your blog! Venturing down the more adventurous route with our sites now and have just stumbled on a problem..
I have a doc library that has your progress bars (with CEWP piece) to show completion rate on a doc–and then also have added the the “Days Left” (countdown for tasks lists)–which is based on the due date of the document in the same view. When I insert the code in SPD for the countdown—it completely jacks up my progress bars 😦
Wondering–is there a way to add the “progress bars” code in SPD vs. a CEWP? or vice/versa….adding the days left code in a CEWP??
I am not a programmer but have been able to follow and utilize your posts to make our sites more robust…..
Just thinking there has got to be a way to have both progress bars and a countdown in one list…..I don’t think that is asking too much, is it? 🙂
Thanks for putting all this info out there—it is greatly appreciated!
amyg
I’m pretty new to SharePoint, and I’m just setting up our site for project tracking. I have a simple list, and I’m trying to set up a KPI to measure the targeted completion date against today’s date. Is it possible to do this in SharePoint Services 3.0 or SharePoint 2007? We will not get 2010 until next summer.
Thank you!
Angela, you’ll find some workarounds on my blog. But the answer is that SharePoint is not good at measuring dates against today (even in 2010).
Hi Christophe!
Great blog!
I have seen that you use SharePoint behind the scenes but present us with a more blog-like ui. Have you blogged about this subject or do you know about any recources to accomplish this? I’m thinking about using SharePoint as an admin interface, but present a different ui to the anonymous users when they browse the sites.
Thank you!
André, sorry to disapoint you, but this blog is based on a WordPress platform. You’ll find other blogs that use SharePoint 2010 (Get the Point, Joel Oleson, etc.).
I just wanted to say thanks for the solutions. Your blog has come up many. many times while googling for answers. BTW, I agree with your nomination of Marc. I had the opportunity to work with him for a very brief time and he is not only very well informed, but he is also very helpful.
Thanks Deb!
And Marc saw your message 🙂
Hello
The step by step guide you produced on how to colour code a sharepoint calendar in 2007 was invaluable. I was wondering if you have produce something similar for SP2010, i am struggling to find anything on the site. It would be a huge help if you have.
Joe, check the notes at the end of the tutorial, there is some information for SP 2010.
Thanks for the above Christophe, i have managed to get this working which is great. I do have another question. Your guide to remove the weekends from a calendar, do you have an updated version for SP2010?
Hi Christophe!
I wanna ask for your help. I am making an travel budget list, inside the list, there are two column one is [Actual] in currency and other one is [total], I don’t know how to make the result calculated field which is [Actual] – [Total] in formula that if [Actual] – [Total] > 0, negative number would show in red where positive becomes green.
Below is my trial but it doen’t work, can you help me on this? Many thanks in advance!
=IF([Actual] – [Total] > 0 ,”<DIV style=’font-weight:bold; font-size:12px; color: Green”,”<DIV style=’font-weight:bold; font-size:12px; color: Red”)
Any idea of how to freeze the title column on a datasheet view list?
The web is coming up with no help for SP2007
Your site has helped me out immensly.
Rhonda
I need to be able to display last added (latest created) document only within a document library view or webpart.
I have a number of reports by category and want to display only the last document added for each sub-category within the category.
I can filter & group etc but cannot display only 1 document (the last added/latest) for the given category/sub-category. It will list all document that match.
Do you have any solutions you can share ? I have searched & searched but to no avail.
Any help would be appreciated (simpler the better)
Callmedude—–
Try going into the document library and clicking edit page. Modify the Document web part. edit current view. do your grouping and filteing.
Then clik on item limit towards the bottom of that form page.
Change the limit to maybe 1 and click the radio button to limit the total number of items to this ammount.
Maybe that would work.
Somewhere on this site, I remember reading a tip about how to access a page if the java script hangs up and you can no longer get to the page. The post said something about using a “?” in the URL… Guess who needs that tip now?! Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.
🙂
?contents=1
Yes!
Thank you.
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is there any certification for designers in sharepoint? if so, kindly let me know
Great blog! Any idea how I can add a calender post to multipal calendars in sharepoint?
Great blog and very helpful. I am trying to add color to the Calendar view. i saw a form we can download with codes but not sure how to begin and where to add the codes. the page has 4 forms adn not sure which one to download. any tips?
Wow! I am learning a lot from this blog… but forming new questions as well!
So here goes: is there a way to capture Current Date (once a condition is met) and keep that date even when the list item is edited?
I manage to do the first part thru Calculated column =IF([Status]=”Approved”,Today)
Whenever the list item is edited (not necessarily the Status column), the [Today] value changes to whatever is the current date.
Is there some tricks to capture a specific date?
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Hi..
Nice blogs.. Very helpful to MOSS developers…
thanks Christophe..
Christophe,
The new link to Easy Tabs/Sharepoint User Toolkit does not work. If I go to http://usermanagedsolutions.com/SharePoint-User-Toolkit/default.aspx, it just hangs and never renders. Is this url correct?
Thanks,
Pat
The url is correct, but apparently the site has experienced some downtime in the past month. I am in the process of moving it to a new environment for better performance.
Hi Christopher, I’ve been reading your blog and I’m having this serious problem with adding Print View on a list. I created. On the bottom of my list I’ve 3 buttons, Submit, Close and Print View. The first 2 work perfectly when you click on them but the print view button is problematic. I created the forms in InfoPath 2010. Can you help me out?
Larry