Right, Jaime.
I understand exactly what you mean.

I suppose a simple work around would be to add a ‘(None)’ entry to your lookup list, but I am not sure how you would ensure that it would be first in the list, ie the default.

A quick test indicates that the sort order is alphabetic, so ‘All’, would always preceed ‘None’ in the selection. But ‘(None)’ preceeds ‘All’ as I guess the parantheses are less than A so to speak.

Hope that helps.

James

A legitimate response to Jamie’s question would be awesome. We are also experiencing the same issue.

Sorry for the delay in response.

Charles, I think the only way to do that would be to create your own Lookup Field. Creating a Custom Field involves Creating a SharePoint Feature, UserControls for forms and an Class Library to handle any custom logic, ie selecting and connectiong to the SQL Database and specfic column or query for the the lookup. This is a subject for another post, which I hope to write within the next couple of weeks.

Joe, as far as a Legitimate answer, I do believe I suggested a decent workaround. Again, to do this elegantly without the extraneous (none) entry in the lookup list would require creating your own SPField, hopefully extending the existing lookup field type. However, I have yet to delve into this area of SharePoint development.

Tim, A quick test indicates that the default behavior is to alphabetically sort the selections. A simple if in-elegant workaround would be to number the lookup column’s values, so instead of a list of Values it would be a list of A) ValueA , B) ValueB, or with Numbers like 1) Value1, 2) Value 2, with the numbers or letters then controling the sort order.

Otherwise we have to delve into creating a custom field. Sounds like fun, so I will explore that and blog about it when I have something.

Thanks for your continued interest!

James

Hi, I liked your posting about Lookup fields. I wonder if you can point me in the right direction regarding the following please?

Let's say we have a list with 3 columns. (e.g. Region, Region Code, and Contact). So we would have actual names of different regions in Column 1; In column 2, these regions can be in Region Codes 01,02 or 03. And finally, we would simply have the appropriate contact names of people who work at these regions.

My query is, – I know how to retrieve the values from the 1st Column (and populate a dropdownlist accordingly), but how do I retrieve the corresponding values from the 2nd and 3rd Column based one the 1st olumn value that I have selected?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Can I take this discussion out a bit further? When setting up the lookup column, choose the option to make this a required field. If there is less than 21 entries in the list that feeds the lookup column, when you add a new entry to the list, the lookup field defaults to the first value in the drop down (instead of a blank). So in reality – it doesn't actually enforce required entry. Instead, it sets up a situation where a user is likely to just save the default. Now the stramge part is that, if you have more than 21 entries in the list that feeds the lookup column – then it actually works the way i would expect it to. When you add a new entry to the list, the lookup column is blank, and you are forced to actually choose a value in order to save and exit. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong? I can't find an explanation anywhere.

Fortunately, I have found the answer, but it will involved coding in Visual Studio.

So the scenario again: Let's say we have a SharePoint List called 'Our_Regions', that has the first column, RegionName, where we list all our regions. (In coding it will always have to be referred to as 'Title' by the way as it's the first column and that's the name SharePoint gives it even if you change it!)

For our second column, we have RegionCode, which can be anything, but let's say we have codes 01,02,03, etc. to identify our regions.

So, what we want is a dropdownlist called dropRegionName to be populated with region names from our first column in the Sharepoint list. Let's say we also have a label control called lblDisplayRegionCode. Depending on which region we select, lblDisplayRegionCode displays the corresponding region code from our SharePoint list, e.g. 01, 02, 03, etc. This is achieved by the following code, which must be within the Page_Load event:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//This part populates the dropdownlist with values from a SharePoint list called Our_Regions
if (!Page.IsPostBack)
{
using (SPSite site = new SPSite(“http://mycompany/sitename/”))
{
using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
{
//Populate my drop down list (dropRegionName) from SharePoint List
SPList listRegions = web.Lists["Our_Regions"];// This is the name of your list in quotes
dropRegionName.DataSource = listRegions.Items;
dropRegionName.DataValueField = “Title”; // 1st column = always called “Title”
dropRegionName.DataTextField = “Title”;
dropRegionName.DataBind();
}
}
}

//For this next bit, we have a label called lblDisplayRegionCode. Whatever we select as our region in dropRegionName,
//the appropriate Region Code is displayed in lblDisplayRegionCode. The code below performs this query for us.

SPListItemCollection itemCol = null;
SPSite site2 = new SPSite(“http://mycompany/sitename/”); //Point at the same site as before
SPWeb web2 = site2.OpenWeb();
SPList list2 = web2.Lists["Corp_Regions"];//Point at the same list as before
SPQuery qryRegionCodeLookup = new SPQuery();
qryRegionCodeLookup.Query = “<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='Title'/><Value Type='Text'>” + dropRegionName.SelectedItem.Text + “</Value></Eq></Where>”;
qryRegionCodeLookup.ViewFields = “<FieldRef Name='RegionCode'/>”;

try
{
itemCol = list2.GetItems(qryRegionCodeLookup);
foreach (SPListItem item in itemCol)
{
lblDisplayRegionCode.Text = item["RegionCode"].ToString();
}
}
catch (NullReferenceException)
{
lblDisplayRegionCode.Text = “Some Kind of Error!”;
}

}

– That's it – hope it's of any use to anyone!

Radovan, we'd love to take a look at that and possibly publish it. Can you please send me your contact information to smitha @ phase2

thanks!

AAdam,

I have a slightly different question. I have built a custom contact list . I would like to use the Field Type of “Person or Group” to ensure that each person entered is validated against our Active Directory (AD) . When I get a user who is in AD, there is other information that I would like to store in my contact list from AD.

So, in the contact list I created a field called “Name” and defined it as “Person or Group” and selected Name (with Presence) as the field to be displayed.

When I add a new person to the list, I enter the persons name in the Name field which uses the People Finder. Once added, you see a hyperlink for each person in the Name field. If you click on the hyperlink, you can view the person's name, email, office phone, and several other fields that are coming from Active Directory.

What I would like to do is once the Name is found in the People Finder, I would like to have other fields in my contact list to be populated with the data that you see when you click on the person's hyperlink.

If I create my list using a separate Person or Group field type for each field that is available in the Person or Group field type (Account, E-Mail, Department, Job Title, …), you have to enter the person's name in the People Finder, for each of these fields in order to get it to store/ display the information for the field you want displayed.

I would like the user to only have to type the name once in the People Finder and display all the fields that you would see if you clicked on the hyperlink of the person's name.

I have tried using a field type of Lookup and Calculate, but don't see the Name field (which has the Field Type of Person or Group) displayed.

Is there some way to do this using WSS 3.0?

Thanks,
Larry

Thanks
Bijay (MCTS MOSS 2007)

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Hi, I don't have visual studio – can this code be added via Sharepoint Designer? If so, HOW???

Thanks

Hi, I'm afraid you cannot do this using SharePoint Designer, but you can use Visual Web Developer (which is a cut-down free version of Visual Studio).

Hope that helps.
AshokJingar

I have the same problem and came across your comment looking for a solution.  If you found something, please reply and I'll do the same.    I don't want my users taken to the source of the lookup when they click the link – I would prefer the value doesn't appear as a link at all except for as a dropdown in the new/edit dialogs.

nigger