Correcting My Ignorance
October 24, 2008
A year ago on this blog, I listed some Notes functions that did not have equivalents in SharePoint.
Over this past year, as I learned more, I learned that I was just plain wrong.
So let me take the time to correct my statements, and lay out the functions in SharePoint to replace the following Notes functions:
- Hide-Whens – Can be computed in your XSLT via SharePoint designer.
- Reader/Author access computed based on document data – Still not available based on my current knowledge.
- Flexible Workflow, sending to different recipients, or selecting a different workflow based on document data – Not available as a single workflow, but multiple workflows can be combined to achieve these types of functions.
- More than 2000 items in a view – Available, but not recommended. Apparently that limitation is not a technical limit, just a performance guideline.
- Private Views – Yeah, these exist. Stored on the server, though, not locally.
- Agents – Not available as a SharePoint function, but you can write scheduled jobs on the server in .NET, etc.
- Action Bar/Shared Actions -Available in Infopath.
There ya go – just reinforces my point that even the most open minded Notes person will not “get” SharePoint development right off the bat. It take times to learn the new moving parts and figure out how to put them together…
October 24, 2008 at 10:23 am
“Flexible Workflow, … – Not available as a single workflow, but multiple workflows can be combined to achieve these types of functions.”
I think you probably mean something more than I am interpreting here. We are in our early struggles with Sharepoint, and workflow is about the only thing we do know how to do in SP Designer… we have a setup that is working for us with one workflow, as follows:
3 custom lists: A) Organization List B) facility list and C) content that the end users can add to that we want notifications on.
List A identifies the various parent organizations of the company, into which our manufacturing facilities are grouped. One org can contain multiple facilities but not vice-versa.
List B is the facility list, and includes the drop-down so the facility can be associated with its single parent organization
Both lists A and B include distribution lists; John works in parent org x, which contains 5 facilities. Jane works in one of the five facilities. So John is place in the distribution for org item x, and Jane is placed in the distribution for her facility.
List C contains the business data and a facility drop-down.
Now Jack adds an item to List C and choose the Jane’s facility.
One workflow is all that is needed to send a notification on add/change, that will go to Jane and to John. John also gets notified on any changes for his other four facilities, but of course he only has to be identified in the org distribution.
I assume you know about all the above; is there something more you are trying to do as far as flexible workflow?
October 24, 2008 at 12:06 pm
@1) Yep. Imagine more of a non-linear workflow. Based on field A, the workflow may need or start at step #1,2,3 or even 10. Or maybe field B would generate a need to launch a completely separate approval cycle. Or maybe part of the workflow allows an approver to make a change, and send the workflow back 2 steps, but not all the way to the beginning.
And hey, you very well may know more ways to do workflows than I – so if you do know how to make a well-designed workflow that can be that flexible, by all means, let us know… I’m actually quite pleased to be wrong when it expands my abilities to get work done.
December 15, 2008 at 7:20 am
Hi,
I know that you wrote:
Reader/Author access computed based on document data – Still not available based on my current knowledge.
Does this refer to a Authors/Readers field in Lotus Notes that is computed and changes programtically during the life of a document, say when it reaches a certain stage in a workflow?
I just wanted to clarify because I have been getting mixed messages about SharePoint security.
Can you tell me, in your experience, if the equivalent of Lotus Notes Readers/Authors fields exist in SharePoint. I’ve had mixed responses from people saying it can be done/cannot be done/can be done but you would not want to.
December 15, 2008 at 12:20 pm
@3) Yes, that is exactly what I am referring to.
The equivalent of Readers/Authors fields does not exist in SharePoint. You can achieve something similar by setting the security on individual list items, and you could write some custom code to automate such a task. You also might be able to use Audiences to achieve similar results, but I haven’t tried much with that.
In short, no Readers/Authors fields do not exist. But yes, you can write custom code to meet the same requirements. So your mixed messages are correct. What you should know is that while you can make SharePoint have similar functions, it will be custom code, and the level of effort will be significantly more than a similar function within Notes.
December 16, 2008 at 1:09 am
Thanks for replying that was very helpful.
Ed
January 14, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Hide/whens are also available in InfoPath using conditional formatting.
January 19, 2009 at 3:29 am
Something I came across in a SharePoint that I think is a problem.
I wonder if you had something to correct the problem or my ignorance!
If you have a document libraries in SharePoint and upload a file the Overwrite Existing File checkbox is checked by default. There is no validation and no warnings to tell you a file of that name already exists. It just does an overwrite.
I know we could do some custom code but then we would have changed the default setup and MS would not give us support if there was a problem later.