Comments (6)

By David Petersen, February 4, 2010 1:10 pm

Normally, I write solutions to problems.  This time around, I need some suggestions to get ideas on how to design a solution to a problem.

The credit department where I work accumulates/produces documents to support the credit limit they grant our customers.  We have categorized them as :

• Financial Statements
• Agency Reports
• Parent Guarantees
• Other

We have defined a content type for each of these types of documents.  With each of these documents, one common field is the Company Name field that describes the company that the document refers to.

The Company is unique in it’s structure.  Each Company can be a Parent company or it can be the Parent to other companies.  I created a Company list that had the fields Name and Parent where Parent was a lookup field type to the Company list.  We currently have the list populated by about 4500 company names with the parent relationships defined.

List: Company

• Company Name, Text Field (required)
• Parent, Lookup of Company List (Company Name field) (not required)

In the document list that contains the four content types, each content type has a Company field that is a lookup to the Company List.

When we were discussing how to design this “application”, the user talked about how he would like to have a view where he could see all documents that related to a company, whether these documents applied directly to the company or one of it’s subsidiaries.  Another requirement would be that the documents for one particular company would be easy to find/view.

As for volume, each company (so far at 4500) will have at minimum 1 of each document types but more than likely will contain 10 – 20 documents with a small growth rate.  There is no document disposition being considered.  From their standpoint, once a document goes into the system, it becomes a historical record for that company.  So – we’re looking at about 45,000-90,000 documents initially and it will grow.

My original thought was that to stay within the 2000 item soft limit per view, I would create a folder in the Document Library for each Company created in the Company list.  I would then have the users save their documents in the folder that corresponded to the company name.  To achieve the view of the data where they could see all documents that applied to the parent and child companies, I would use the relationships defined in the Company list to create a custom view using the DataView Web Part.

So – here are my questions:

1. Do I need a separate folder for each company?  Am I limiting myself?
2. If we just use a Company Name field using the lookup list, would we run into performance problems?
3. If we do use the folder, is there a way to automate the creation of the folder when I create a new Company in the Company List.
4. If we do use folders, is there a way to prevent documents from being created outside of the folders?
5. Can a document inherit a property from it’s parent?  (i.e. could a document get it’s company name by being saved into a specific folder with the right company name?
6. (If folder) How do I prevent users from saving documents into the document library outside of a folder?

I’m sure there are more questions that I need to be asking.  It has been so long since I worked in Designer or the Web interface.  I’ve been living in Visual Studio for the last year.  Leave comments / remarks / insults.  Anything is appreciated.

Comments (0)

By David Petersen, January 30, 2010 6:55 am

Up and ready for a great SPS-Indy.  The building is a great location for a SharePoint Conference.  My session is scheduled for 2pm so I’ll get to attend some other great sessions.  Here are some pictures I have taken of the venue.  Look for more later!

Comments (1)

By David Petersen, January 28, 2010 4:25 pm

I just saw that they are having SharePoint Saturday – Ozarks again this summer. SPSOzarks was my first SharePoint Saturday experience and I really enjoyed it. The information I learned, and the relationships that I began that Saturday were the impetus for getting more involved in the SharePoint community.  Since that Saturday in Harrison, Arkansas, I have attended Microsoft’s SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas, gotten more involved in our local SharePoint User Group and started presenting at other SharePoint Saturdays. I hope to work up another presentation for SPSOzarks so I can be a presenter this time instead of a spectator.

Comments (0)

By David Petersen, January 25, 2010 2:38 pm

SharePoint Joel (Joel Olesen) has a good post in preparing for Code and Feature Depreciation in SP2010.

Understanding Feature and Code Depreciation for Upgrade to SharePoint 2010

Comments (6)

By David Petersen, January 20, 2010 2:57 pm

I write a lot of code using the SharePoint object model.  Often times, I want to check to see if a particular Web exists in a Site Collection or a List exists in a Web.  I used to write methods that enumerated through the collection to see if they existed or I wrapped a Try-Catch block around the code in case the object didn’t exist.

Recently I came across a code snippet that made checking for the existence of a web or list easy.  I can’t remember where I found it so I’ll thank the nameless person who originally wrote the code.  I’m only capturing it here for my own reference and possibly help someone else.

        static bool ListExists(SPWeb web, string listName)
        {
            return web.Lists.Cast().Any(list => string.Equals(list.Title, listName));
        }

        static bool WebExists(SPSite site, string webName)
        {
            return site.AllWebs.Cast().Any(web => string.Equals(web.Name, webName));
        }

Comments (0)

By David Petersen, January 15, 2010 3:33 pm

The company I work for purchased the Quest Notes Migrator for SharePoint.  Overall, it has saved me lots of time migrating from Lotus Notes.  The main reason is that I have absolutely zero experience with Notes.  Now, the Quest tool allows me to migrate all of the rows into SharePoint pretty painlessly.  I was having one problem.  As I migrated Lotus databases, I was getting SharePoint lists with 50 -100 list items.  Performance lagged when trying to view those items and it made SPDesigner almost unusable.  I set out to find a way for the tool to create folders around a Created date.  My final solution utilized Lotus @Functions.

In the spirit of trying to save someone else a lot of time, here is what I did. 

1. I used Quest Notes Migrator for SharePoint Designer.
2. If you select a folder type in the mapping, Designer will create a folder with the name of the item.  If the item has a forward or backward slash, it will create nested folders.  So, I wanted a nested folder based on a date.
3. In the Notes data definition, I created a new formula field.
4. The formula that I used is:  @Text(@Year(@Created)))+”/”+@Text(@Month(@Created)))+”/”+@Text(@Day(@Created)))
   

   DateString Formula

5. I created an alias of FolderDateString
6. Output type is String.
7. On the DataMapping, map the FolderDateString field to a Folder type. That will tell Designer to automatically create nested folders based on the string.
8. That’s it!

Hope this helps someone!

Final data mapping

Comments (1)

By David Petersen, January 11, 2010 12:39 pm

I have been confirmed to present at SharePoint Saturday – Indianapolis on January 30, 2010 and SharePoint Saturday – New Orleans on Febuary 27, 2010.  I’ve never been to Indianapolis or New Orleans, so I’m looking forward to it.  I will presenting the same presentation I did at SharePoint Saturday – Kansas City – What I Wish I Knew Before I Implemented SharePoint.  Watch out for flying mood dudes!

Comments (0)

By David Petersen, January 11, 2010 12:24 pm

Joel Oleson has a good post about determining your SQL server requirements in your SharePoint implementation.  A good resource for planning.

10 Key Questions Determining SharePoint SQL Server Count

Comments (0)

By David Petersen, January 11, 2010 11:13 am

Here is a list of SharePoint 2010 Architecture and Planning links.  I am mainly capturing this link for future reference!

http://rdacollab.blogspot.com/2010/01/sharepoint-2010-planning-and.html

Comments (0)

By David Petersen, December 17, 2009 10:27 am

I presented at the Omaha SharePoint User Group last night (12/16/2009).  Good meeting and a great discussion.  I did the same presentation that I did at SharePoint Saturday – Kansas City.  One thing I did find out was that my tag that has my contact information was password protected.  Talk about a downer.  Here’s a cool little application that allows mobile phone users to capture information using their phone camera and then my tag doesn’t work.  Oh well.  Not everything can go perfectly.  I have updated my tag settings and updated the tag on this website in case someone wants to try it again.  Let me know if you use the TAG and what your results were.

For more information about the Omaha SharePoint User Group or other Microsoft user groups in Omaha, go to the Omaha Microsoft Technology Group website.