Content Types S harePoint takes the concept of site columns a step further, allowing you to create groups of site columns called Content Types. Content Types are defined for a site and can then be applied to lists. This allows for an even more manageable and reusable structure than leveraging site columns alone. Multiple content types can be associated with a single list to store items with multiple formats in a single list. For instance, Domestic Contact and Foreign Contact content types can be created with slightly different columns needed for address information. Both can be associated with a single list to store and manage your corporate contacts. Newly created sites contain predefined site content types for contact, event, document, task, issue, and other information. Creating Site Content Types Site content types are managed in the Site Content Type Gallery found in the site settings of a site. Like site columns, content types are available on the site where they are created and all of its sub- sites. If you want a content type to be available for an entire site collection it must be created at the top-level site of the site collection. To create a site content type, perform the following steps: 1. On the site’s home page, click the Site Settings link in the Site Actions menu. 2. On the Site Settings screen, click the Site Content Types link in the Galleries section. 3. On the Site Content Type Gallery screen, click the Create link on the toolbar. 4. On the New Site Content Type screen, enter a short descriptive name and an optional longer description for the column. 5. Choose the parent content type using the Group and Content Type selections. Your new con- tent type will be initially cr eated using the columns and settings of the parent content type. 6. In the Group section, select an existing group to help organize your site content type for easy management. 7. Click the OK button. ■Tip To customize the organization of your site content types, select the New Group option, and enter a group name when creating a new site content type. After you perform the previous steps, the Site Content Type page is displayed allowing you to further manage your newly created content type. Managing Site Content Types Site content types are managed within the Site Content Type Gallery. The gallery is available from the Site Content Type Gallery link on the Site Settings page. The Site Content Type Gallery screen displays the content types av ailable in the curr ent site along with their par ent type and the site where they were created. The names of content types created on the current site will be links that take you to Site Content Type management screen. The S ite Content Type management screen, shown in Figure 4-17, enables you to manage the settings and columns of the selected site content type as w ell as delete the content type fr om its site . CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 156 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 156 To delete a site content type, perform the following steps: 1. On the site’s home page, click the Site Settings link in the Site Actions menu. 2. On the Site Settings screen, click the Site Content Types link in the Galleries section. 3. On the Site Content Type Gallery screen, click the Site Content Type link for the Site Content Type you want to delete. 4. On the Site Content Type screen, click the Delete this Site Content Type link in the Settings s ection. 5. When prompted to confirm that you wish to delete the site content type, click the OK button. ■Tip A site content type that has been added to a list cannot be deleted. Clicking the OK button on the deletion confirmation window will result in a message stating that the content type is in use. To delete the content type, it must first be removed from every list that it has been added to. Figure 4-17. The Contact site content type Settings The settings for a site content type ar e divided into two main groups. The first group contains basic information about the content type and is accessed via the Name, Description, and Group link on the Site C ontent Type page. Table 4-22 lists the basic settings for site content types. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 157 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 157 Table 4-22. Basic Settings for Site Content Types Setting Description Name The name used to identify the site content type through your SharePoint site collection. Description A more elaborate explanation of the list’s purpose. This is displayed to the user when adding the content type to a list. See the Managing List Content Types section later in this chapter for adding content types to lists. G roup The group used for organizing the site content type in the Site Content Type Gallery and other places where it is displayed. A new group can be created by selecting the New Group option and entering a name. The second group contains a setting for making the content type read-only. If the content type is based on the document content type, a Document Template setting is also available. Table 4-23 lists the advanced settings for site content types. Table 4-23. Advanced Settings for Site Content Types Setting Description Document Template Specifies which file to use as the template when users create new documents from the content type. This setting only appears in content types related to the document content type. Documents, templates, and libraries are discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. Read Only Prevents modifications to the site content type, including editing the content type after it has been added to a list. Update Sites and Lists Determines if a change to the Read Only setting affects all existing lists. Columns The columns of a site content type are managed in a similar fashion to the columns of a list. The most significant difference is that all of the columns in a site content type must be site columns. The Site Content Type page displays a list of the columns currently associated with the content type, along with the type, status, and source. The types are the familiar data types that you have used when creating columns in lists. The status is a choice of three options: Required, Optional, or Hidden. A hidden column will not be displayed to the user, yet remains a member of the column type. The source is the site content type that the column is directly associated with. Since site con- tent types inherit their columns from their parents, and those parents inherit their columns from their parents, the source can be any ancestor content type of the currently displayed one. To add an existing site column to a content type, perform the following steps: 1. On the Site Content Type screen, click the Add from Existing Site Columns link in the Columns section. 2. On the Add Columns to Existing Site Content Type screen, select each column you want to add to the list in the A vailable Site Columns box, and click the Add button. Change the Select Columns From selection to filter the list of available columns, allowing you more to more easily find the desired site columns. 3. In the Update List and Site Content Types section, select Yes to update existing lists that use this site content type . 4. Click the OK button. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 158 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 158 You also have the ability to create a new site column and add it to the content type in a single process. Rather than clicking the Add from Existing Site Columns link on the Site Content Type page, click the Add from New Site Column link and proceed in the manner described earlier in the “Managing Site Columns” section. Changing the column order is available by clicking the Column Order link on the Site Content Type screen and modifying the Position from Top values for each column. To delete a column from a content type, click the name of the column, and click the Remove button at the bottom of the page. You will be requested for confirmation that you wish to perma- nently delete this column from all instances of this content type. Workflows can be defined for content types. To begin creating a workflow for a content type, click the Workflow Settings link on the Site Content Type screen. Workflows are discussed in detail throughout Chapter 7. Managing List Content Types Once you have created your site content types, or if you are using the default content types avail- able in SharePoint, you need to add them to a list to leverage their structure and capabilities. Since content types are an advanced feature meant for po wer users, a list must first have content type management enabled before it can use them. Enable the Allow Management of Content Types list setting, available in the Adv anced S ettings screen of a list as described in the Managing Lists section of this chapter. Adding Content Types to a List When content type management is enabled for a list, the Customize List screen will contain an addi- tional section labeled Content Types. This section will display all of the content types associated with the list, each showing if they are available in the New menu of the toolbar on the list page and which content type is the default. To add a site content type to a list, perform the following steps: 1. On the Customize List screen, click the Add from Existing Site Content Types link in the Content Types section. 2. On the Add Content Types screen, select each content type you want to add to the list in the Available Site Content Types box, and click the Add button. Change the Select Site Content Types From selection to filter the list of available choice, allowing you more to more easily find the desired site content types. 3. Click the OK button. Once these steps have been completed, the content type will be available to users in the New menu on the toolbar of the list page as sho wn in F igure 4-18. By using this menu to select what type of new item they want to create, they can add items with different structures to the same list. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 159 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 159 Figure 4-18. Multiple content types in a list Editing and Deleting the List Content Type Clicking the name of a content type in the Content Types section of the Customize List screen brings you to the List Content Type page used for managing a content type that has been added to the list. From this page y ou can change the settings of the content type or manage the columns associated with it. Editing the content type on the List Content Type page will only affect the con- tent type for the current list, not the Site Content Type. The Name and Description link brings you to a screen that allows you to modify the name and description of the content type for this list. This is important, as this information is what is dis- played to users when they are creating new items in the list. It is best to be as informative and specific as possible, so that the users pick the correct content type for their needs. The Advanced Settings link brings you to a screen that allows you to determine if the content type should be editable at the list level. This will help prevent other users from mistakenly making changes that could affect the integrity of the list and its data. The Columns section of the List Content Type page contains everything you need to manage the columns associated with the content type for the list. Similar to the way you manage columns in Site Content Types, you can add a column to the content type from existing site content types. The Add Columns to List Content Type page will also let you add custom list columns that have been created for the list to the content type. Clicking the name of a column in the Columns section presents the List Content Type Column scr een. This scr een giv es y ou the ability to make the column R equir ed, Optional, or Hidden. The col- umn can be removed from the content type by clicking the Remove button at the bottom of the page. The Delete this Content Type on the List Content Type page lets you remove the content type fr om the list. Y ou cannot remove a content type if there are items in the list that currently use it. These items must first be deleted before the link will allow you to successfully delete the content type fr om the list. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 160 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 160 ■Note Restoring a list item whose content type has been deleted out of the Recycle Bin will cause the item to use the default content type. The list allows you to configure which content types are visible to the user, the order that they appear, and which is the default content type that is used with the New link in the toolbar of the list page is clicked. Clicking the Change New Button Order and Default Content Type link on the Cus- tomize List page displays a list of all content types associated with the list, along with boxes that determine if a content type is available to the user, and a Position from Top selection to determine the order of the content types when displayed to the user. ■Tip The content type in position 1 is always the default content type. RSS Feed Settings Really S imple Syndication (RSS) is a technology standard for allowing applications, also known as readers, to subscribe to information from other web sites. RSS feeds provide updated data in a stan- dar d format that can be interpreted and processed by feed-reading applications. The SharePoint 2007 technologies allow you to expose lists as RSS feeds that other users can subscribe to in order to consume the list data. A common use for this is to enable lists containing corporate news or announcements to be accessible on mobile devices and other enterprise applications that read RSS data. Before a list can be exposed as an RSS feed, RSS must be enabled on both the site and site col- lection. Feeds are enabled by default when a site collection and sites are created. To enable RSS feeds at a site collection level, perform the following steps: 1. On the site’s home page, click the Site Settings link in the Site Actions menu. 2. If the site you are on is a subsite rather than a top-level site, click the Go to Top Level Site Settings link under the S ite Collection Administration section; otherwise, skip to step 3. 3. On the Site Settings scr een, click the RSS link in the Site Administration section. 4. On the RSS screen, check the “Allow RSS feeds in this site collection” box in the Site Collec- tion RSS section. 5. Check the “ Allo w RSS feeds in this site” box in the Enable RSS section. 6. Enter any additional settings for the RSS feed in the Advanced Settings section. These set- tings apply to all RSS feeds cr eated in the site collection. 7. Click the OK button. Once RSS is enabled at the site collection level, it must be enabled on the site that contains your list. To enable RSS on a site, perform the previous steps skipping steps 2 and 4. Now that RSS is enabled at the parent-site and site collection levels, the appropriate link to the RSS settings will appear in the C ommunication section on the C ustomiz e List page . Table 4-24 describes the RSS set- tings you can edit to customize the feed. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 161 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 161 Table 4-24. RSS Settings for SharePoint Lists Setting Description Allow RSS Enables or disables RSS for the list. T runcate Multi-line Text Determines if the RSS feed only contains the first 256 characters for all Multiple lines of text fields in the list. For lists with large amounts of text stored in “Multiple lines of text” columns, selecting Yes to truncate these fields to 256 characters will improve performance of SharePoint and the RSS reader. Title May be used by RSS readers when displaying the feed to users to show the purpose of the feed. Description May be used by RSS readers when displaying the feed to users to convey a longer explanation of the feed’s contents. Image URL May be used by RSS readers when displaying the feed. Columns Determines which list columns have their data included in the feed and in what order . Maximum Items The maximum number of items to include in the feed’s contents of recently changed list items. Maximum Days The furthest amount of time back that RSS will go when looking for recently changed list items to include in the feed. To enable RSS feeds for a list, perform the following steps: 1. On the list’s page, click the List Settings link in the Settings menu on the toolbar. 2. On the Customize List screen, click the RSS Settings link in the Communications section. 3. On the Modify List RSS Settings screen, select the Yes option for the “Allow RSS for this List” setting. 4. In the RSS Channel Information section, modify the Title, Description, and Image URL for this list’s feed. 5. In the Columns section, check the box next to each column that you want included in the RSS feed, and determine their positions by modifying their associated D isplay Order num- bers, the same way you select columns to include in a view. 6. In the Item Limit section, enter the maximum number of items to include in the feed and how old those items can be. 7. Click the OK button. When these steps are completed, users are able to read the list using RSS. Each view in the list has its own URL that users will need when configuring their RSS readers. A view’s RSS URL can be obtained from the list page. On the list page, click the View RSS Feed link in the Actions menu. This will take y ou to the view ’ s RSS feed, which is sho wn using I nter net Explorer 6 in Figure 4-19. When this is displayed, copy the URL from your browser’s address bar for use in RSS readers. ■Note To subscribe to your list via RSS with an RSS-compliant reader, either search the Internet for the many available RSS feed reader applications or use the RSS Viewer web part that is available when SharePoint Server 2007 is installed in your environment. For more information on this web part, see Chapter 8. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 162 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 162 Figure 4-19. A list RSS feed displayed in a browser Advanced Office Integration There are many advanced features when using the Office desktop products that allow you to man- age list information. Most of these enhanced abilities are provided through Excel 2003 or later and allow you to view, edit, and manipulate list data from within an Excel spreadsheet instead of thr ough the S harePoint site. We will describe some of the more useful features including exporting S har eP oint list information into Excel, importing Excel data into a SharePoint list, and synchroniz- ing data changes betw een the two . Exporting SharePoint Lists to Excel The ability to take existing lists and expor t the list items into a spr eadsheet is fairly str aightfor war d. This can be beneficial when providing the information to someone without access to the list or when you need to test what-if scenarios on the data without making permanent changes to the list. T o export a list to Excel, follow these steps: 1. N avigate to a SharePoint list you want to export. 2. On the list’s page, click the Export to Spreadsheet link in the Actions menu on the toolbar. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 163 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 163 3. If you are prompted about opening or saving the Microsoft Office Excel Web Query File, click the Open button. a. On the Opening Query dialog box in Excel 2003, click the Open button to confirm that you want to run the query to export the information into the Excel spreadsheet. b. On the Microsoft Office Excel Security Notice dialog box in Excel 2007, click the Enable button to confirm that you want Excel to read a data connection to the SharePoint list. 4 . I f you already have Excel open, the Import Data dialog box will appear. Choose where to put the list. Options include a region on the current worksheet, a new worksheet, or a new workbook. If you did not have Excel running, the data will be put into a new workbook. ■Note When exporting list information to Excel, all list items displayed by the current view are exported. Items removed from the view by its filter setting are not included, but setting the temporary filter on the list screen has no affect on the data exported. The Excel List The new data that appears after performing the preceding steps is actually more than just values in a spreadsheet format. This information is treated as a list within Excel 2003. You can tell that a region of cells in Excel is a list by the colored box surrounding the cells, the column headings that act as filters using drop-down menus, and the additional list actions available in the Excel 2003 menu under the Data option, as shown in Figure 4-20, or the Design menu displayed in Excel 2007 when the list is selected. These list actions are also av ailable b y right-clicking the list in the spread- sheet or by displaying the List toolbar within Excel 2003. Figure 4-20. An Excel List in Excel 2003 after exporting from SharePoint The power of the Excel List is that it is linked to the list in SharePoint that was used to create the spreadsheet. This allows you to make changes to the data in Excel 2003 and have those changes applied to the list in SharePoint, or vice versa. Of the available Excel List actions, the following are the most impor tant to the integr ation with S har eP oint (shown with 2003/2007 labels): CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 164 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 164 • View List on Server/Open in Browser • Unlink List/Unlink • Synchronize List/(Not available in Excel 2007) • Discard Changes and Refresh/Refresh The View List on Server/Open in Browser action launches your browser and displays the default view of the linked SharePoint list. T he Unlink List/Unlink action removes the link between the Excel List and the SharePoint list. After unlinking the lists, data changes can no longer be synchronized between them. You may do this when you have completed your what-if scenarios or data editing and no longer want the Excel sheet used as an interface for changing the SharePoint list information. Once this unlinking is per- formed, the Excel List cannot be relinked to the same SharePoint list; you would have to export the SharePoint list again using the steps provided earlier. The Synchronize List action is the most important of the advanced actions when using linked lists. This action sends any changes made to the Excel List to SharePoint and updates the Excel List with any changes that users have made to the SharePoint list. Synchronizing the lists often ensures that everyone is viewing the latest information whether they are using SharePoint or the Excel sheet. Sometimes a conflict occurs when you have edited a value in Excel and, before synchronizing, a user has edited the same v alue in the SharePoint list. The next time you choose to synchronize the lists, Excel will display the Resolve Conflicts and Errors dialog box. This dialog box displays each list item that has had conflicting changes made to it, highlights the conflict, and allows you to choose how to resolve it. For each conflict, you can discard or apply your change. You can also choose to have Excel discard or apply your changes for all conflicts at once. ■Note Excel 2007 does not allow you to synchronize modifications to the data back to the SharePoint list. The D iscard Changes and Refresh/Refresh action retrieves the list information from the Share- Point list and uses it to repopulate the Excel List. Any changes you have made in the Excel List are overwritten by the list data from SharePoint. Creating Custom Lists Using Excel I n the “Exporting SharePoint Lists to Excel” section, we described how to take an existing SharePoint list and manage the data in Excel. The integration between Office 2003 or later and Windows Share- Point Services 3.0 also allows you to use an existing Excel sheet as the basis for creating a SharePoint list. Ther e are two ways of doing this: by importing the spreadsheet and publishing the list. Importing the Spreadsheet If you have followed the steps to create a custom list earlier in this chapter, you may have noticed an I mport Spreadsheet link on the site’s Create page under the Custom Lists section. This Import Spread- sheet link provides the starting point when creating a custom list based on existing Excel data. To create a custom list from existing Excel data, follow these steps: 1. On the site’s home page, click the Create link in the Site Actions menu. 2. On the Create page, click the Import Spreadsheet link in the Custom Lists section. 3. On the New page, enter a name and description for the list. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 165 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 165 [...]... like PivotTables and Access reporting, please see the product documentation 8296Ch 05. qxp 2/2/07 2:17 PM CHAPTER Page 169 5 III Lists W indows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 include list templates you can use when creating the lists you will need for your sites and meeting workspaces Lists created from these templates use the same concepts, such as settings, columns, and views, that... Outlook contact folders and the newly linked contacts list folder by performing the following steps: 8296Ch 05. qxp 2/2/07 2:17 PM Page 1 75 CHAPTER 5 I LISTS 1 In Outlook 2007, open your Outlook contacts display 2 In the contacts folder, select the contact, and press Ctrl+C to copy it 3 Select the SharePoint contacts list folder, and press Ctrl+V to paste the contact into the SharePoint contacts list... with SharePoint and save the changes, your modifications are saved back to the calendar list in SharePoint In addition to editing calendar list items within Outlook 2007, you can create new events using the calendar displayed in the Outlook 2007 interface using standard Outlook features, and those events are saved back to the calendar list in SharePoint too To create a new appointment in the SharePoint. .. events and integration with SharePoint workspaces and Outlook 2003 or later, all of which are discussed in this section Calendar list items are based on dates and include the columns shown in Table 5- 6 Table 5- 6 Calendar List Columns Column Type Notes Title Single line of text The name of the event Location Single line of text Where the event will take place Start Time Date and Time The date and time... Table 5- 4 1 75 8296Ch 05. qxp 176 2/2/07 2:17 PM Page 176 CHAPTER 5 I LISTS Table 5- 4 Discussion Board List Views View Description Subject This is the default view; it displays the subject, creator, number of replies, and the time of the last update for each topic in the discussion board Threaded This view displays the posted date, posted by information, and post message for the initial message and all... Outlook 2007, perform the following steps: 183 8296Ch 05. qxp 184 2/2/07 2:17 PM Page 184 CHAPTER 5 I LISTS 1 In Outlook 2007, open your Outlook calendar display 2 Select the SharePoint calendar list entry in the Other Calendars section 3 In the calendar display, click the date and approximate time for the new event 4 In Outlook 2007, click the Appointment option in the New menu of the toolbar 5 In the... information to Excel and displays the Chart Wizard dialog box, allowing you to create graphs and charts based on the list items Create Excel PivotTable Report Exports the list information to Excel and displays the PivotTable Field List dialog box and toolbar The PivotTable allows you to select from the columns in the SharePoint list and create PivotTable reports with the capability to alter rows and columns... a SharePoint site To publish the list using Excel 2003, follow these steps: 1 Select the Excel List 2 Under the Data menu, choose the List submenu, and click the Publish List action 3 On the Publish List to SharePoint Site dialog box, enter the URL of the SharePoint site where the list should be created 4 Select the check box labeled Link to the New SharePoint List This makes the Excel List and SharePoint. .. you want to provide a collection of links to both external and internal web pages The list contains a single view, called All Links, which displays all list items along with an Edit column for editing a list item The columns in the Links list template are shown in Table 5- 5 177 8296Ch 05. qxp 178 2/2/07 2:17 PM Page 178 CHAPTER 5 I LISTS Table 5- 5 Links List Columns Column Type Notes URL Hyperlink or Picture... original e-mail including Sender, From, To, CC, and Subject 8296Ch 05. qxp 2/2/07 2:17 PM Page 187 CHAPTER 5 I LISTS Tasks The Tasks list template is one of the most commonly used templates in team collaboration sites and meeting workspaces The tasks list is used to assign and manage tasks for site users The columns in the Tasks list template are shown in Table 5- 9 Remember that you can customize the columns, . This makes the Excel List and SharePoint list linked as described earlier. 5. Enter a name and description for the list. 6. Click the Next button. 7. On the Publish List to SharePoint Site dialog. PivotTables and Access reporting, please see the product documentation. CHAPTER 4 ■ LIST CONCEPTS 168 8296Ch04.qxp 2/2/07 2:27 PM Page 168 Lists Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007. viewing discussion forums in one of the two views described in Table 5- 4. CHAPTER 5 ■ LISTS 1 75 8296Ch 05. qxp 2/2/07 2:17 PM Page 1 75