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5 ways you can use SharePoint list and library view settings to improve the user experience

SharePoint has many out-of-the-box (OOTB) ways to improve the way data is displayed in lists and libraries. Many of these can alleviate headache your users experience when adapting to a new way of working with their abundance of ever-growing information. Let’s check out a few things you can do right now, in less than five minutes:

  1. Prevent horizontal scrolling by carefully selecting displayed columns
  2. Sort items appropriately
  3. Filter to relevant info per view
  4. Group items into logical “buckets”
  5. Adjust item limits

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Use Microsoft Flow to get the number of items in a SharePoint list or library

Sometimes you need the number of items in a list or library for reporting, notifications, or just curiosity. The following details three methods you can use to get the count of items for different purposes.

  1. Use Microsoft Flow to get the number of items and use in various ways
  2. Add “count” to the top of a classic view SharePoint list for all to see
  3. Quickly find “count” just for your information in site contents or list settings

(Video at bottom of first section)

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10 reasons putting team/department documents in SharePoint is better than shared drives: Part 2

Asset 1mazeThis post is a continuation of 10 reasons putting team/department documents in SharePoint is better than shared drives.

See part one for information about:

  1. Version history
  2. Approvals/Administration
  3. Check-in/Check-out
  4. Co-editing
  5. Archiving & retention

And below for information about:

  1. Sharing and security
  2. Remote access
  3. Metadata and views
  4. Workflows & alerts
  5. Sync & export

Continue reading “10 reasons putting team/department documents in SharePoint is better than shared drives: Part 2”

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10 reasons putting team/department documents in SharePoint is better than shared drives: Part 1

Asset 1mazeYou know that one file, right? The one named “Agenda.docx” in the folder called “November” in the “2008” folder in another folder called “DO NOT Delete” in the “Archive” folder of the “Retired Committees” folder?

Me either. And chances are you don’t need it anymore. But managing team/department documents on traditional shared drives has challenges like this all the time, with management, retention, content ownership, etc. SharePoint, however, can greatly assist in keeping your content current, relevant and organized.

Of course making the switch from shared, common network drives to SharePoint can be intimidating. But the benefits of doing so are well worth the effort to make your team work more efficiently. This post will highlight 10 features in SharePoint you can’t necessarily get from shared network drives:

Part One:

  1. Version history
  2. Approvals/Administration
  3. Check-in/Check-out
  4. Co-editing
  5. Archiving & retention

Part Two:

  1. Sharing and security
  2. Remote access
  3. Metadata and views
  4. Workflows & alerts
  5. Sync & export

Continue reading “10 reasons putting team/department documents in SharePoint is better than shared drives: Part 1”

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How to add rows for dates between start and end dates in Power BI date range data

screenshot1
Screenshot from appsource.microsoft.com’s app detail page.

In Power BI there are several custom visuals available, such as Elastacloud’s Calendar Visual, that show the density of events over time. However, if your data includes date ranges (start date with a different end date, such as task/project lists), visuals like these will only understand one of the two dates (whichever you’ve chosen for the data value) and none of the dates in between will be accounted for, making your data visualization incorrect.

You can, however, “expand” these date ranges or durations to create rows for all the dates including start, end and those in between. This way each date that’s part of the range is then graphed appropriately.

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Set multiple choices as default values for checkbox fields in SharePoint forms

default checks

I recently worked on a project for a client that needed 2/3 checkbox options checked by default on a new form. While not as straight-forward as other field types, it’s still certainly possible.

  1. Go to List –> List Settings (server/on-prem) or settings wheel –> List Settings (online/O365)
    list settings
    list settings o365
  2. Click the name of your checkbox/choice column to edit its settings or create a new checkbox column
    iexplore_2018-07-26_07-53-51
  3. Change “Default value:” from “Choice” to “Calculated Value”
    iexplore_2018-07-26_07-52-49
  4. Enter a formula like: =”;#Choice;#Choice;#Choice;#”
    Example:
    =”;#Printed Statement;#E-Statement;#Pick Up in Office;#”
  5. Click OK

That’s it! Now on new forms/items, everything you entered in the formula as a default choice will be pre-checked.
pre-checked

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Replace SharePoint attachment paperclip icons with actual hyperlinked attachment names in list views

You can attach documents to SharePoint list items. However if you add the “Attachments” column to your list views, you get a column that only shows a paperclip icon (see below) if there are any attachments. Clicking that paperclip also won’t open any attachment or the list item to view them. It’s strictly an image.

attachment paperclip

Here’s how you can replace that paperclip on each row with the actual name(s) of your attachment(s) linked to the actual attachment(s).

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Solution: “We’re sorry. We can’t open {file} because we found a problem with its contents.”

When using SharePoint Designer workflows to automatically create documents from a template you might run into an error message:

“We’re sorry. We can’t open {file} because we found a problem with its contents.”

document contents error

Or if you’re just opening it within the browser web app instead of the Word client, you might have seen:

“Sorry, Word Online ran into a problem opening this document. To view this document, please open it in Microsoft Word.”

But if you do open it in Word you then get the first error message. Luckily it’s a simple fix.

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Customize styles/formatting of SharePoint list column header rows

Note: This post applies to on-premise/server lists or O365 lists set to “classic” view. This will not work on modern views.

A little style on column header rows goes a long way. For example, just a background color and font adjustment can take your list from:

Before:

headerwithoutstyle

to
After:

headerstyle

Here’s how you can apply your own styles to your list(s).

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Automatically open SharePoint 2013 workflow tasks in Edit mode for easy one-click approvals

one-click approval

On one of my recent projects, a client asked if it would be possible for the link to a task within a workflow notification email to open the task in “edit” mode instead of “display”. If you’re unfamiliar with SharePoint 2013 task processes built in SharePoint Designer, here’s what their process looked like prior to our change:

  1. Someone submits form
  2. Approval request sent to manager
  3. Manager clicks link in email to open task
  4. Manager clicks “Edit”
  5. Manager clicks “Approve”

They wanted to eliminate step 4 to make the process as easy as possible (one-click after opening link in email). Here’s what we ended up doing:

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