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Monday, June 1, 2009

Displaying and Filtering Lists in another SharePoint Site with SharePoint Designer 2007

By popular demand, I am dedicating this posting to the avid readers of the blog.

As mentioned in the title, we will be addressing how to display and filter ListItems contained in another SharePoint Site by using SharePoint Designer 2007.


This is a very easy way to maximize the use of a powerful tool such as SharePoint Designer 2007 is for SharePoint Technologies. Now, let's start customizing:

Connecting to another library

  • Open SharePoint Designer 2007
  • Click File -> Open Site
  • Enter the URL of the SharePoint Site that we will customize
  • Click the default.aspx Page
  • Scroll down to the bottom of the TreeView
  • Click the Connect to another library Link
  • Click the Add Button
  • Enter the Display Name for the Site
  • Enter the URL of the SharePoint Site
  • Click OK Button
  • Click OK Button

Adding and Displaying the SharePoint List with the Data View Web Part

  • Position the cursor where we desire the Data View Web Part to be displayed
  • Click Insert -> SharePoint Controls –> Data View on the SharePoint Designer Top Menu
  • Click the Data Source Library Tab located at the right corner of SharePoint Designer Toolbox
  • Expand the Node corresponding to the recently created connection to another SharePoint Site
  • Expand the Node named SharePoint Lists
  • Hover over the desired SharePoint List to display
  • Click the Show Data Link
  • Select the SharePoint List Columns to display
  • Drag and Drop them onto the Data View Web Part
  • Click the Save Button on the SharePoint Designer 2007 Top Menu Toolbar
  • A Message Box indicating that the current SharePoint Site will be customized is displayed
  • Accept and Continue
  • Refresh the Browser
  • The SharePoint List is now displayed

Filtering the SharePoint List with the Data View Web Part

  • Click the Data View Web Part
  • Click the > Button
  • Click the Filter Link
  • A Filter Criteria Box is displayed
  • Click the Click here to add a new clause Link
  • Select from the Dropdown the Field Name to be used for filtering
  • Select the desired value in the Comparison Dropdown
  • Select the filtering value in the Value Dropdown
  • Click OK Button

While this approach easily accomplishes the tasks of displaying and filtering a SharePoint List from another SharePoint Site, it can become an inconvenience for a SharePoint Administrator in a scenario in which multiple sites will require a specific filter for the SharePoint List.

Enjoy!

6 comments:

  1. Hi Doug,

    Thanks for the steps to create a Connection to Another Library. Would you have any idea why the connection would fail to show the "SharePoint Lists" category in the connected source?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jerry,

    The quickest idea would be permissions, but most likely you have already verified that option. Would not hurt to check the following:
    1 - Patches and updates installed
    2 - Verify if 'Designer' permissions are set in the desired site

    Feel free to post as many times as needed so that we can resolve this issue.

    Regards,

    Doug Ortiz

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the reply Doug. I think my problem is the configuration of the subsite is not complete. This "parent" site was created by another person who backed up the site with all the documents and restored it at a lower level calling it [root]/sites/tasks. It does not show up as a proper subsite, so something needs to be done to define it as a subsite.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jerry,

    That does help to understand the reason why it might not be displaying properly. I would suggest the following:

    1 - Creating a subsite at the same level as the problem sit
    2 - Copy the content from the currently problematic site ( lists, document libraries, etc. )
    3 - Verify permissions are working correctly
    4 - Re-test in designer to see if it displays properly

    Hope this helps.

    Regards,

    Doug Ortiz

    ReplyDelete
  5. HI,
    Thaks for the gud post.
    I am facing a problem when i retrive data from subsites. Lists and libraries datasources are not visible rest xml, data connections etc sources are visible.
    I am new to sharepoint. Please help.

    Thanks for the help in advance.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous,

    Thank you for reading and following the blog.

    The first thing that comes to mind is that the account might not have SharePoint Designer permissions for that specific subsite(s).

    Regards,

    Doug Ortiz

    ReplyDelete