I love seeing the simple things inside of SharePoint combined together to create solutions. I was recently at a client site where a team had a need to create a contacts directory for their team. They were looking for a way to provide a list of people that users could select from the list to see more information. The solution they chose was very simple and accomplished exactly what they had wanted. They created a contacts list and then used the “Preview Pane” style to display the list data in a view. Once they had all the data loaded, they simply loaded a web part on one of the pages and users were able to scroll through the list to find information on each of the team members.
Below are some screenshots of an example of the solution:
Such a simple design, but really provides value quickly to the users. Another example where I have seen this used is for a directory of classes. Users can scroll over the title of the class and immediately see all the detailed information such as next class date, description, audience and cost.
I think it is so easy sometimes to overlook what we can easily do with SharePoint out of the box. This post if just a simple reminder of some of the quick solutions we have available just using the tools we have out of the box.
Jennifer Ann Mason 