Cascading Dropdowns – SharePoint 2010 Approach with Managed Metadata and OnePlaceMail

Often in SharePoint there is a requirement for ‘cascading dropdowns’ to filter field selection options based on the selection of a parent field and it’s value. A classic example of this is Clients and Projects, each client has several projects so when the user selects a client you want to filter the list of projects to just the projects related to that client to ensure consistent and correct tagging of metadata.

In SharePoint 2007 this was quite painful to achieve. You had to create a custom column definition with it’s own configuration options to lookup to SharePoint configuration lists and set relationships between the different cascading dropdown columns so a parent-child relationship could be achieved.

SharePoint 2010 presents a new way this can be achieved out-of-the-box using Managed Metadata. I am going to show you an example of this and how OnePlaceMail can interact with it as well.

SharePoint 2010

• Create a term Set in your Taxonomy Store in SharePoint 2010:

• Make the submission policy ‘Open’ as i am going to show you how you can Add Terms ‘on-the-fly’ in SharePoint and OnePlaceMail later on.
• Create a New term for each Client and make the term not ‘Available for tagging’ so that they have to chose the project related to the client:

• Create terms below the Client term so you end up with a term for each project for the client ensuring that they are left with ‘Available for tagging’ checked:

• You now have the hierarchical structure setup with the relationship between clients and projects setup. Create a new document library or go to an existing document library in SharePoint and create a new Managed Metadata column, give it a name like Project Name’ referencing the termset you have just created. Ensure that ‘Allow-Fill choices is enabled so we can create new terms on the fly later:

• Now upload a document, you will be able to select the project based on the hierarchy setup in the Taxonomy store:

• Because the relationship between Client\Project is set you can turn on Metadata navigation in the library and navigate by client or by client\project:

This is a nice way to setup the metadata relationships. The user no longer needs to select a parent column which then drives the selection list of the second column which they then must chose a value from, the relationship is set for them by setting up the taxonomy hierarchy and they have to only chose one option enabling fast tagging of documents.

OnePlaceMail

The data relationships setup above is especially useful if you need to get information from Outlook and your Microsoft Office applications into SharePoint with the correct metadata set e.g. emails and attachments related to a particular client\project

OnePlaceMail facilitates this process:

• Copy an email(s) to SharePoint from Outlook:

• Select the library we created above as the filing the location (or the library you have added the ‘Project Name’ column to above) and select the project:

• Then click save, the email is uploaded to SharePoint with the metadata set:

• OnePlaceMail also also support creating a ‘new term’ during the filing process (as you can through the SharePoint UI as well). Repeat the filing process as above, but this time chose to ‘Add new item’ to create a new project to file against:

• The term will be added to the termset and the document will be filed using this term:

• You can also surface the benefits of metadata navigation all within Outlook without going out to the browser:

SharePoint 2013 Client Object Model – BCS Enhancements

Looks like there has been a lot of work spent on improving the client side object model BCS support in SharePoint 2013. This was an area that was lacking in SharePoint 2010 where your only real options were to interact with an external list like you would any other list or write your own web service and code it using server object model (this obviously was not supported in Office 365).

Now you will be able to create feature rich client and mobile applications interacting with your BCS (External Data Columns, External Content Types from SharePoint).

Some useful links:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj164116(v=office.15)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj163886(v=office.15)#BCScsom_getstarted

Integrate your SharePoint Lists with Outlook using OnePlaceMail

For a lot of companies the primary communication method with suppliers, partners, customers etc. is still email. Although instant messaging, extranets etc. help open up the communication channels, email is still the preferred communication method. Often the email is a trigger for some internal process, a meeting needs to take place, the team needs to be notified of something important or a new issue/problem has to be logged and tracked internally to resolution.

With OnePlaceMail it is well known that you can file emails, attachments and documents to SharePoint document libraries. However, OnePlaceMail also offers the ability to file emails and attachments to  SharePoint lists i.e. Calendar, Issue Tracking, Project Tasks, Announcements and any custom list you have setup etc.. This functionality has been there from the start but I thought I would take the time to give some examples where it could come in really useful.

Don’t stop reading if you think you have to buy OnePlaceMail to get the features I am about to describe; The Express Edition of OnePlaceMail is free (it’s not a trial or time limited) – just download it and you’ll be using OnePlaceMail with SharePoint from your desktop in minutes.

Scenario 1:

You have received an important email from a client and you want to notify your project team by creating an announcement in the project announcements list in SharePoint and include the email as an attachment to the new announcement.

• Select the email(s) in Outlook and click ‘Copy to SharePoint’

• Select your project announcements list as the filing location and fill in the metadata about your new announcement and click Save:

• A new announcement will be created in SharePoint with the emails as attachments to the new announcement:

Scenario 2:

You have received a new project issue from your client in an email and you need to create a new issue in the team issues list so it can be tracked and resolved in SharePoint.

• Select the email(s) in Outlook and click ‘Copy to SharePoint’

• Select your project issues list as the filing location and fill in the metadata about your new issue and click Save:

• A new issue will be created in the Project Issues list in SharePoint with the emails as attachments:

Scenario 3:

You need to schedule a meeting in your project team calendar in SharePoint regarding several emails from the customer regarding a change in the scope of work for the project.

• Select the email(s) in Outlook and click ‘Copy to SharePoint’
• Select your calendar list as the filing location and fill in the metadata about your new calendar entry and click Save:

• A new Calendar entry will be created in the Project Calendar list in SharePoint with the emails as attachments:

OnePlaceMail also supports filing to any custom lists you may have setup as well. The scenarios above give you a few ideas on how you can further integrate your SharePoint Lists with Outlook. The story doesn’t end there, I thought I would show you another ‘nifty’ function while I am on a roll!

Create a new item in a Lookup list ‘on the fly’

Take this scenario, you are filing emails to a list or library using OnePlaceMail that has a lookup column (which looks up a Customer list) for a list of customers for you to chose from but the Customer you need is not in the list and a new one needs to be added so you can select it.

Rather than having to go out to the browser, work out which list the column is looking up, locate the lookup list, create and save the new entry then go back to OnePlaceMail and select the entry, you can create the item ‘on the fly’ during the filing process. This functionality cannot be achieved in the SharePoint UI when uploading documents etc. to libraries.

• Using OnePlaceMail click the picker icon next to the lookup column. Then click ‘create new lookup item’

• Enter the new item title, in this case it is a Customer name and click ‘Create’:

• The new item will be created in the list in SharePoint and the value will be selected in OnePlaceMail:

So here are a few ways you can integrate your SharePoint lists with Outlook. We have just launched 6.2 so please refer to the OnePlaceMail Release 6.2 Highlights for more.

Insert attachments and links from SharePoint lightning quick in Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010

As part of the 6.2 release we have focussed on greater productivity from the desktop in particular that ability to link to content already existing in SharePoint and the ability to send out attachments from SharePoint if sending emails externally to partners, suppliers etc..

OnePlaceMail has always solved the painful issue of getting content from the desktop into SharePoint seamlessly with metadata etc. and now we tackle the equally painful issue of ‘communicating out’ existing content within SharePoint.

Introducing ‘Insert from SharePoint’

• We have introduced a new ribbon button in Outlook:

• Quickly browse or search for content in SharePoint:

• Quickly filter and sort library/list content and search results:

• Select one or more items and select ‘Insert as Link’ or ‘Insert as Attachment’:

• The link or attachment is inserted into the new email in Outlook:

The native SharePoint 2010 alternative approach to Inserting an attachment from SharePoint

• Open up the browser and navigate to the library or search for the content in SharePoint.
• Locate the correct item and select ‘Download a copy’:

• Choose a location to save the copy to.
• Switch back to Outlook
• Compose a new email
• Insert an attachment as normal and browse to the location you saved the file.

This process is extremely cumbersome involving you switching between applications to complete the process. With the OnePlaceMail approach we allow you to complete the process all within Outlook which not only makes the user more productive but helps further drive the adoption of your SharePoint platform.

Further reading

http://www.scinaptic.com/news/bring-sharepoint-to-the-user-for-greater-productivity-oneplacemail-r62.html