SharePoint Archives - Office PowerUps

28Apr 2014 by Charlie Nichols 8 Comments

How to Bulk Import to SharePoint from Excel with a Choice Field

400 level, Excel, SharePoint, SharePoint Designer, Workflow

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Scenario: Import to SharePoint from Excel Do you have a large SharePoint list with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of items? And, are some of the columns in your list choice fields based on lookup values from other SharePoint lists? If you have data from an Excel file that you need to import to SharePoint from Excel, you’ll quickly find that a straightforward copy and paste operation won’t cut it. However, with a bit of prep work you can absolutely do a bulk import of your data without having to write code, or buy a special add-in. Setting up for the Import You will need to do a bit of prep work before you can do the actual import. But this setup work is trivial compared to trying…

10Feb 2014 by Charlie Nichols 1 Comment

Editing Text in a SharePoint List View or Data View

InfoPath, SharePoint, SharePoint Designer, Workflow

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Having Your Cake and Eating It Too SharePoint text fields (Multi line) have some limitations. In SharePoint, you can enable your text fields (of type Multiple Lines of Text) to keep a running revision history of all the changes in that field. This is great when you need to see the history of comments provided, for example. There are some limitations, however, that come along with that when viewing and editing text in a SharePoint list view. First, you cannot directly view the most recently text entered. You instead see a link to View items which just opens up the associated form for the item where you could see the text field and its history (not really that helpful). If you need to be able to show the most…

29Jan 2014 by Charlie Nichols 2 Comments

How to Get Notified of Workflow Errors in SharePoint or Project Server

Project Server, SharePoint, SharePoint Designer, Workflow

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] How to Set Up Workflow Error Alerts The process is almost identical for both SharePoint and for Project Server. The only difference is that the URL to the view of the workflow history differs between the two. Open Your Workflow History List The first step in setting up the alert is to navigate to the SharePoint list that has the workflow history. Project Server Workflow History URL <yourserver>/Project%20Server%20Workflow%20History/Allitems.aspx SharePoint Workflow History URL <yourserver>/Lists/Workflow%20History/Allitems.aspx Create Your Custom Workflow History List View Next, create a custom view of the workflow history list. Click Create View on the List tab in the ribbon. Click All History in the Start from an existing view section. Enter a View Name. Call it something like "Workflow Status" or something. Select the following fields (add…

28Jan 2014 by Charlie Nichols 8 Comments

How to Erase or Blank a Text Field with a Workflow in SharePoint Designer

SharePoint, SharePoint Designer, Workflow

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Use a Workflow to Erase or Blank a Text Field in SharePoint Sometimes, you come across a situation where you need to erase or blank out the contents of a text field in SharePoint. You don't need to delete the item. Instead, you just need to blank a text field. Using a whitespace character just won't cut it. To accomplish this, you will need to create a simple workflow using SharePoint Designer. Presented below are two specific ways. I've used one of them with SharePoint Designer 2010. I've used the other with SharePoint Designer 2013. How to Blank a Text Field with a Workflow in SharePoint Designer 2013 First, create a workflow variable containing a single space character and use the Trim function to blank the variable. Select…

29Dec 2013 by Charlie Nichols No Comments

SharePoint List Management Tip: Sharing Management of Choices

SharePoint

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Sharing the Management of Field Values in a SharePoint List Consider creating separate custom lists to manage the drop-down, radio buttons, or checkbox selections you have in your custom SharePoint lists. I have created custom SharePoint lists for clients. Sometimes I have a “choice” column in the list that has a set of choices that, for numerous reasons, requires the acceptable values to be changed somewhat regularly. As the site administrator or creator of the list I wind up getting frequent requests that require the values in the list to be managed. An individual request is no big deal. But when you start to add up the requests the churn can be somewhat distracting. And toss in an occasional “urgent” change request, and the distraction or randomization factor…

05Sep 2013 by Charlie Nichols No Comments

SharePoint Workflow Error Occurring (Sometimes)

SharePoint, Workflow

The Problem (and my solution at the bottom) I was having a vexing problem with a set of workflows running on a custom SharePoint list. I would occasionally get a SharePoint workflow error without any consistent reproducible state. Some of the workflows were created by me, and some where there when I took on the role of maintaining the SharePoint site. The Symptoms I Could Observe I was not a site administrator, but I had the ability to create custom lists, workflows, and pages. But I couldn't look at any server logs or anything. The workflows only occasionally failed. Sometimes (most of the time actually), everything worked great. Some of the workflows were set to run when a new record was created, some when a record changed, and some when…

09Jul 2013 by Charlie Nichols 66 Comments

Send email when specific field changes in SharePoint

SharePoint, SharePoint Designer

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] How to send email if a specific field changes in SharePoint (versus just any field in the list item) You need to send email when specific field changes in SharePoint, based on a field changing instead of just any field in the list item. SharePoint has provision for users to set up alerts when items in a SharePoint list change. However, sometimes you only want an alert when a specific field changes. For example, you may only want to know when a field such as Target Delivery Date changes. You can set up this email trigger by performing the following (each described more fully further below). 1. Set up a “helper” column that will serve as the basis for keeping track of any pre-change state. 2. Set up…

25Jun 2013 by Charlie Nichols 40 Comments

Show the most recent comment from SharePoint text fields instead of “view items”

SharePoint

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] How to show the most recent comment instead of ‘view items’ in SharePoint lists When you set up a SharePoint list you can create a text column that keeps a history of previous entries. You enable this by selecting Yes for the Append Changes to Existing Text column setting. This is handy for a comments field where you need to keep track of user comment history, for example. The problem I’ve had is that when you put this column in a SharePoint view you wind up seeing a hyperlink with the text “view items”. This is not helpful. Further, the link always shows up – even when there are no comments or text in the column. This just makes for way too much clicking back and forth. The…

11Jun 2013 by Charlie Nichols 21 Comments

Display icons in SharePoint lists

SharePoint

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] How to display status icons in a SharePoint list I needed to display a KPI indicator icon in one of my SharePoint list columns. To display status icons in SharePoint lists in my case, I needed to show a Red/Yellow/Green status symbol. I couldn’t find a setting in SharePoint that made this easy as I had done in Excel and Project before. But then a colleague showed me a little trick that scratched the itch just fine. The setup You’ll need to have a field that carries a value that the user can set. In my case, I created a field called “Status” and made it a drop-down select list with the values “Red”, “Yellow”, and “Green”. Next, I created a calculated field I called “Status Indicator”. The…