Paul Galvin's SharePoint space [SharePoint MVP]

SharePoint Shop Talk continues with our 14th session tomorrow at 12:30PM EDT.

This is a free ranging and open Q&A session free to everyone that wants to attend.  Dial in and ask questions or start a discussion on a topic of your choosing.

This week we’re definitely going to talk about:

• Best practices around search scopes, crawling content, schedules, etc.
• Data view web part and “current user” difficulties (DVWP is a weekly favorite).
• Someone wants to talk about “Why pay thousands for a marketing list” from a Shop Talk newcomer, “185165@video.wokr13.com”.  This one should be interesting.  Very interesting.

I’ll also be performing a SharePoint magic trick you won’t want to miss!

If you have any questions, fire them off to questions@sharepointshoptalk.com, leave a comment or buzz me on twitter (@pagalvin).

Register here: https://www323.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000043750/Registration.aspx?pageName=dlnf750v8cqsstzx

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I’m very excited to announce that Natalya Voskresenskaya, my fellow SharePoint MVP and partner (with far less help from me than she deserved) is launching a new user group devoted to enterprise search based on Microsoft technology.  As a practical matter, this boils down to SP 2010 search and a lot of talk about FAST, especially in our first session.  Natalya and I have written a lot about FAST over the last year on our blogs (Natalya has more and better stuff than I!).

Our first meeting is coming up in just a few weeks in New York at Microsoft’s newly renovated offices on 6th near Rock Center.  If you’re in New York on 12/9, you have no excuse not to make an appearance.  Likewise for you Jersey people.  Connecticut people can stay home (just kidding!). 

NY/NJ/CT people should skip this paragraph.  We also plan to record the session and run a live web session so if you live outside the tri-state area, you should be able to tune in. 

I’ll blog about this some more as this most auspicious day approaches but register now.  After you register, the long wait begins.  During that time, clear your schedule, break the news to your family and alert the media because you won’t want to miss Nate Treloar launch our group to the moon and beyond :)

Find out more from our official site: http://www.sharepointgroups.org/enterprisesearch/default.aspx.

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The next SharePoint Shop Talk takes place tomorrow at 12:30 PM EDT.

This is a free event to anyone that has a telephone.  A panel of SharePoint pro’s take questions and do their best to provide useful guidance and advice.  We regularly hijack audience members and make them answer questions and try to have a good time.

Send your questions or topics to questions@sharepointshoptalk.com.

Register here: https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000043750/Registration.aspx?pageName=sx9p9r6prwxp5mk9

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The next edition of SharePoint Shop Talk takes place Thursday, 11/05/09 at 12:30 PM EDT.

Register here: https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000043750/Registration.aspx?pageName=gr5l4q66rv3f4xwj

SharePoint Shop Talk is an open phone line, open Q&A to talk about all things SharePoint.

If you have questions or topics that you’d like the panel to discuss, send them by email to questions@sharepointshoptalk.com or twitter them to me (pagalvin).

I’m badly rushed for time this week, so I’ll leave it at that.  I usually like to preview some of the already-emailed questions.  This week, you’ll have to dial in to hear about it :)

We hope to see you on line.

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Note: this was first posted at www.endusersharepoint.com here: http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2009/11/02/comparing-dates-in-a-data-view-web-part-to-build-a-wss-kpi-in-sharepoint/.

This is yet another blog post on comparing dates in XSL in a data view web part in SharePoint.

This is my scenario:

• I have a custom list.
• The business purpose of the list is to support the idea of a new employee and his/her tasks to be completed within 7 days of starting the job.
• They are in a “warning zone” after 4 days if they have not completed these tasks.
• I want to create a simple dashboard that shows green when they have either completed the task or if they have more than 4 days to complete it.
• I want the dashboard to show yellow if they are in the warning zone.
• I want to to show red if they have not completed the task after the due date.

I borrowed from this article at Marc Anderson’s blog (http://mdasblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/comparing-dates-in-sharepoint-using-xsl/) to get the comparison logic and this article at www.endusersharepoint.com for the basic ideas behind the dashboard (http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2008/12/09/visual-indicators-for-the-masses-kpis-in-wss/) written by Toni Frankola.

You should read the supporting blogs, but the implementation goes like this:

1. Create a content type (columns + CT)
2. Create a custom list and associate it with the content type.
3. Create a web part page.
4. Add the custom list to the web part page.
5. Open up the page in SPD.
6. Convert the list to a DVWP.
7. Modify the XSL to generate the dashboard bits.

I have two dates: a warning date and a due date.  To compare the dates, my xsl does the following:

  <xsl:choose>

    <!-- When both handbook and policy are signed, we are green regardless of dates. -->

    <xsl:when test="@Employee_x0020_Handbook_x003F_ = 1 and @Security_x0020_Policies = 1">

      <img src="/_layouts/images/KPIDefault-0.GIF" alt="No problems"/>

       <a href="/HumanResources/Lists/New Employee Checklist/EditForm.aspx?ID={@ID}&amp;Source=/HumanResources/Shared Documents/New Hire Dashboard.aspx"> [Edit]</a>

    </xsl:when>

    <!-- Show amber indicator if we're past the warning date. -->

    <xsl:when test="ddwrt:FormatDateTime(string(ddwrt:Today()), 1033, 'yyyyMMdd') &gt;= ddwrt:FormatDateTime(string(@TaskDueDate), 1033, 'yyyyMMdd')">

      <img src="/_layouts/images/KPIDefault-2.GIF" alt="Overdue"/>

        <a style="border: 0px" href="/HumanResources/Lists/New Employee Checklist/EditForm.aspx?ID={@ID}&amp;Source=/HumanResources/Shared Documents/New Hire Dashboard.aspx"> [Edit]</a>

    </xsl:when>

    <!-- Show red indicator if we're passed the due date. -->

    <xsl:when test="ddwrt:FormatDateTime(string(ddwrt:Today()), 1033, 'yyyyMMdd') &gt;= ddwrt:FormatDateTime(string(@Warning_x0020_Date), 1033, 'yyyyMMdd')">

      <img src="/_layouts/images/KPIDefault-1.GIF" alt="Warning"/>        

      <a href="/HumanResources/Lists/New Employee Checklist/EditForm.aspx?ID={@ID}&amp;Source=/HumanResources/Shared Documents/New Hire Dashboard.aspx"> [Edit]</a>

    </xsl:when>

    <!-- If we get here, we're earlier than the warning date, so we're green. -->

    <xsl:otherwise>

      <img src="/_layouts/images/KPIDefault-0.GIF" alt="No problems"/>

       <a href="/HumanResources/Lists/New Employee Checklist/EditForm.aspx?ID={@ID}&amp;Source=/HumanResources/Shared Documents/New Hire Dashboard.aspx"> [Edit]</a>

    </xsl:otherwise>

  </xsl:choose>

A few key points from above:

• I tried to compare dates without using the ddwrt functionality and got nowhere.  I still don’t understand that.  They dates displayed correctly, but both “>” and “<” comparisons always failed.  In the end, ddwrt came to my rescue (thanks, again, Marc).
• I’m also displaying an [Edit] link to the item.  I mainly did this so that I could easily test this out.  The link itself may be useful to someone trying to figure it out.
• This is implemented in SharePoint online and works nicely.
• The images I reference in the _layouts directory (/_layouts/images/KPI…) are available out of the box in my environment so they are probably available for you as well.

Here’s a screen shot of what it looks like for me:

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