Managing Links with the “I need to…” Web Part
Links are like Tribbles… they end up everywhere
It’s time to decide the best way to display your links on a page.
If you are using MOSS, you have what I consider five options: Links List, Content Editor Web Part, Content Query Web Part, Summary Links Web Part, and I Need to.. Web Part. It really comes down to how many links are you trying to display.
Maybe you only have 2-5 links and one of the first four options will be fine. But if you have any more than that all of sudden your page is just covered with links.
While I think the first four options listed all have value, the biggest problem I have with them is screen real estate which is why I choose the fifth option frequently, the I Need to… web part. For this article I am going to assume you know how to use the first four and we are going to walk through how to turn the I Need to… web part into a drop down links list.
The “I need to…” web part can help
The I Need to… web part was originally intended to connect to the Site list in the Sites Directory as an easy way for your users to navigate. However it works well as a links drop down for any type of links whether they are internal or external.
In order to do this, you need to create a custom links list. This is because the built in links list does not have a title column which is what is displayed in the dropdown nor does it have a choice column which the web part uses for filtering.
The first three steps listed below will walk you through setting up the list.
- Create a Custom List with the following Columns.
- Add a couple of items filling in all three columns. The web part is going to ask you to filter the choice column, so if you would like all of the items to show up make sure you are selecting Yes for the Yes/No column.
- Go to the homepage of your site, in the right hand column add the I Need to.. web part. When you have the web part in edit mode configure it as follows: (Note: the list name should be the custom list you created in the first step)
Title |
Type |
Title (should be created by default) |
Single line of text |
URL |
Hyperlink |
Yes/No |
Choice column; yes, no should be the choices |


If you would like to change the width of the web part, you can do it with the width option seen above. This would allow you to accommodate links with a lot of characters.
Now your web part should look similar to this

After I demonstrate the above functionality of a links drop down clients frequently ask how do I customize the fact that the web part says “Choose a task”. The following are the steps you will need to take to accomplish this.
- The next step is to change the text in the web part from “Choose task” to “Choose Link”, to do this on the drop down of the web part select export. Save the web part to your desktop.
- Click Open and Use SharePoint Designer or Notepad to open the file. To change the word task to link in the default text of the web part, Locate this line of code approximately line 75
- To change the tooltip, Locate this line of code approximately line 74
- Save the File
- Go back to the homepage of your site. Put the page in edit mode and click add a web part. In the bottom right hand corner of the web part gallery click Advanced Web Part Gallery and Options.
- Select the drop down arrow in the top right hand corner of the web part task pane. On the drop down select import.
- Browse to the file you just saved and click upload.
- Click Import.
- Be sure to delete the first I need to… web part off of the page.
<option selected="true" value="0">Choose task</option>
Change “Task” to “Link”
<select id="{$TasksAndToolsDDID}" class="ms-selwidth" style="width:{$tasksAndTools_Width}" size="1" title="Choose a task that you need to perform" >
Change “task” to “link”; you may want to delete “that you need to perform” or reword the tooltip altogether.
Conclusion
So that is it, with a few simple changes to the code you can customize the web part and create a very functional efficient drop down list of links with custom messages and tooltips.
The same simple steps used here to customize the web part can be used with other web parts that have been exported. This may help you to start thinking about other problems you can fix with this type of solution. Hopefully you will at least find this useful when you get the request for everyone’s link on the homepage as I frequently do when I am designing a new homepage layout.
As always, we are happy to receive any feedback from you regarding topics you would like us to address. Leave it in the comments below.
Author: Nicola Young
SharePoint 911
Nicola Young works exclusively with SharePoint technologies, specializing in information organization and usability. She is currently a SharePoint trainer and consultant with SharePoint911 and focuses on the business applications of SharePoint.
Works well thannk you! Just need to make sure you pick choice column and no the Yes/No column. Took me a few minutes to figure that out.
This web part gave me fits for months. Not sure why because your instruction was so quick and easy to follow. Thank you. I will be making use of this web part very soon.
Nicola – I tried this out and it works well. I’ve added a link to your article to our SharePoint Resources for end users. Keep them coming!
Nicola,
Is there a way to modify this web part so it will work in WSS 3.0? Thanks.
Great tip! I’ve been wondering how to do this, and never thought of look at that web part.
I’ve put 3 of the “I need to” webparts on my page, all pointing to the same list. Rather than having “yes” and “no” as the choice, I had 3 different categories of links in there and used these as the filters for the 3 web part on the page (one showing links for category A, the next for category B and so on).
Thanks for this.
Adam
Thanks for the useful information. However, is there a way to change the order of the items displayed in the dropdown of the ‘I Need To…’ web part?
Currently it displays the items in order they were ‘added’ to the list. I cannot seem to figure out how I can change the order.
I’ve created several views (1 by 1) for the ‘AllItems’ view of the list which I pull into the ‘I Need To…’ web part, but it has no effect on the dropdown. The I Need To web part still shows items in the order they were added. So my list in the dropdown shows up like:
Alpha
Delta
Charlie
Beta
I want to display it as:
Alpha
Beta
Charlie
Delta
Any ideas?
I have got links in the drop down but i want to open those links in new window. Plz help!!
Hi!
Great tips!!
I would like to know if you can just click on the selection link and go to the link rather than the two-step process of selecting the link and then clicking the arrow button.
Thanks!
Jay
Jay,
By inserting the following code into the select tags the Go button will be clicked automatically when an item is selected. Works in IE, haven’t checked for other browsers….
onchange=”javascript:document.getElementById(’{$TasksAndToolsGo}’).click();”
Robyn,
Unfortunately I do not know of a way to make it work in WSS 3.0. You could try using the Data view web part to create the drop down effect.
SPUser,
I have looked into this issue and I am not able to find the ability to change the order in the XML it might be held in the web part file and need to be custom development.
Priyanka,
Try out this post for help opening the links in a new window:
http://seethepoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CDB633EE9271C6FA!171.entry
SPUSER,
While not exactly what you are looking for this post might help you to sort the list alphabetically:
http://amatterofdegree.typepad.com/a_matter_of_degree/2008/02/how-to-make-the.html
Jay,
In theory you could use some Javascript, similar to this post:
http://www.davesite.com/webstation/js/theory1jump.shtml
Note: the post is not for SharePoint.
However, I have not done it. Sorry for not being able to provide a more detailed response.
Hey thnxx, Nicola … got it working
However, it’s not working for bookmark links. Any ideas.
E.g: http:\\……\FAQ.aspx#cost. It’s not redirecting to bookmarked content. It’s showing the complete page.
Thanks,
Veera Reddy
Wow, after books ad meetings with “experts” finally! I have a working “I need to…” web Part!
Thank you Thank you Thank you
Thanks, Nicola. This saved me a lot of time today, and will save me more time in the future when I may need to move the links to different lists or provide different topic groups.