Grouping by Dates in Task List

Jennifer Ann MasonLeave a comment

Over the past few weeks I have been collaborating with one of my clients on different ways to group tasks together by dates. I figured others would find it helpful, so I decided to share on my blog. Keep in mind; these calculated fields can be created on any list with a date field, not just an events list.

Scenario

Group my tasks together so that I can create views based on tasks on the following:

  • Year
  • Month
  • Week
  • Weekday

Solution

Add the following calculated fields to your task list:

Name Formula Display Type
Year =TEXT(YEAR([Start Date]),”000″) Single Line of Text
Month =CHOOSE(MONTH([Start Date]),”01-January”,”02-February”,”03-March”,”04-April”,”05-May”,”06-June”,”07-July”,”08-August”,”09-September”,”10-October”,”11-November”,”12-December”) Single Line of Text
Week =[Start Date]+7-WEEKDAY([Start Date]) Date & Time, Date Only
Weekday =TEXT(WEEKDAY([Start Date]),”dddd”) Single Line of Text

Once these fields have been added, you can use them to create views. The following screenshots shows some examples of the tasks list grouped by the calculated fields.




By using SharePoint calculated fields you are able to create multiple ways to view the data. In most organizations, simple steps like this go very far in promoting usability and value of the SharePoint solution. Remember, the simple things sometimes bring the most value! 

Using Managed Paths to Build a Meaningful URL

Jennifer Ann MasonLeave a comment

I have recently been working on a SharePoint implementation that has the requirement to support multiple companies within one implementation. Each company is part of a larger company (all users are in one AD structure) and needs to have a url for their intranet that is based on a standard for all intranet urls.

We looked at two options for implementation:

  1. Create a web application for each company.
  2. Create web applications for similar content and then use managed paths to build meaningful urls.

This post describes the approach we are taking using option 2. We are going to build out two web applications, one for the intranet sites and one for team collaboration sites. The intranet sites will be used to push content and a limited number of users will have the ability to add content. The team sites will be in a self service creation mode and any users that have completed the admin training will be able to create sites.

What we specifically want to accomplish with the urls is the ability for the end users to know exactly where they are at and easily be able to navigate back to the main site in the future.

The following images show what we are trying to implement:

We can do this by creating managed paths within our web application. We will be creating both explicit inclusion and wildcard inclusion managed paths. An explicit inclusion managed path is a managed path that will only have one site associated with it. An example of an explicit inclusion is the root site. By creating an explicit inclusion managed path for each of the companys we will be creating a way for them to navigate to the url http://intranet/company to access the main intranet site for thier company. We will then create a wildcard inclusion for each of the companies that will support the additional site collections that are part of the intranet.

So for each company, we will create two managed paths:

  1. company
  2. companysites

To create a new managed path you will need to navigate to the following location:

Central Administration > Application Management > Define Managed Paths

From here you will want to make sure you are in the correct web application and then enter the information you need for the managed path.


Once you have created your managed paths, you will be able to create a root site at each explicit inclusion and an unlimited number of sites at each wildcard inclusion.