Fun With Announcements – Part 2
Create Alerts Based On Announcement Categories
Here’s how to use a single announcements list, categorize the announcements by department, and allow alerts to be created per category. This list can also be set up to display only the announcements of the logged in user’s specific department.
- In your announcements list, create a new column called “Department”, as a text box, choice list, or even a lookup to a separate list of departments.
- In the list, create a new, filtered view for each different department, like this:
Click the View drop-down box at the top right of the announcements list, and choose “Create View”, choose Standard View.
In the Filter section, choose to filter by Department is equal to department name.
Do a new view for each department. - Now that the filtered views exist, alerts can be set up based on them.
Try it out. On the announcements list, click <Actions> and choose <Alert me>. You’ll notice that in the “Send Alerts for These Changes” section, there’s a new option that lets you choose to be alerted on items that exist in a particular view.
In this case, it’s a particular department’s announcements. Also, as an administrator, since you have the ability to set up alerts for other people, you can create a new alert based on new items created in the view for each department, and have that alert sent to members of a departmental group in Active Directory.
Here’s a bonus:
In MOSS Enterprise, set up the announcements web part to display only those of the logged in user’s specific department:
- On the announcements web part, edit the properties of the web part. Edit the current view, and add the Department column to the view.
- Add the “Current User Filter” web part to the same page. In the web part toolpane, in the “Select value to provide” section, select the dropdown box called SharePoint profile value for current user, and select the field, “Department”. Click OK in the web part toolpane.
- Create a web part connection between the Current User Filter and the Announcements web part’s Department field.
Now, the announcements web part will only display the current user’s departmental announcements.
Note: If your announcements web part were a Data View Web Part, step 1 above could be skipped. In other words, when it’s a DVWP that is the consumer web part, the connected field is not required to be displayed as a column in the web part.
Tomorrow we’ll look at modifying the default "Current View" of the announcements Web Parts.
Author: Laura Rogers, Birmingham, AL
http://spinsiders.com/laurar
http://twitter.com/wonderlaura
Laura Rogers is currently a SharePoint Administrator at HealthSouth Corporation in Birmingham, Alabama. She has ten years of experience with Microsoft’s messaging and collaboration systems. This includes four years in SharePoint implementation, training, and customization. Laura has been a MCSE since 1999, with her most recent certifications being MCSE 2003 + Messaging, MCTS in MOSS and MCTS in WSS 3.0 Configuration. She also wrote a chapter in the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrator’s Companion by Bill English.
- Fun With Announcements - Part 1
- Fun With Announcements - Part 2
- Fun With Announcements - Part 3
- Fun With Announcements - Part 4
Hi,
I wanted to use the announcements web part since it shows the ‘new’ icon for the new items. now, I don’t want to see ‘department’ in the view/on the web part. How do I filter on that column for the current user, without having it in the view?? If I implement it using Data view web part, How do I display the ‘new’ icon??
Thanks,
GM
Is there a tool for announcement lists across a site collection using target audiences that will automatically compile an individual users announcements and formulate an email sent to each user like a daily announcement summary? (This to avoid the end user having to subscribe to every announcement list in a site collection.)
Hi,
In my Announcement list I have a column named “Target Audience” which I can choose who this announcement applies to. I then created views based on this column so employees could create their alerts accordingly.
The problem I discovered is that when your view has a filter to show only where “Approval Status” equals “Approved”… it disappears as an option to create an alert me. In other words, it no longer shows on the Alert Me page where you can select a view.
Weird. Anybody have an explanation for this?
Thanks. This series of articles was very helpful.
Ian
Nice, is there a way to allow the SharePoint to look at the group permissions in AD to show the announcements relative the users group?
Hello,
I’m trying to configure a Current User Filter webpart but under “Sharepoint profile value for current user” I get an empty list. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks
Robert,
If you set item level, specific permissions on each announcement, then that would be a way so that users would only see announcements that they have permission to see. That’s kind of high-maintenance, but it’s one way to do it.
Luiza,
What are you trying to accomplish with the current user filter web part? What field did you use to connect it to the announcements list? Created By? If so, this would only show the currently logged in user’s announcements they created themselves. An alternative approach would be to set up the current user web part to look at the “Department” field, and connect it to a department field in the announcements list, so that a logged in user will only see announcements targeted to their department.
(This is a MOSS only solution, for others of you who are reading this)
Hello Laura,
Thanks for your quick response.
I tried to apply your bonus solution to my issue tracking list (which also includes a department field).
I do follow the steps given by you:
1. add the Department column to the current view.
2. add the Current User Filter to the same web part page
3. open the tool pane, select the “SharePoint profile value for current user” option and try to select the “Department” field.
BUT… The list box is empty and will not let me choose any property of the user profile.
I have full control permissions on my site.
Luiza,
The information in that drop-down box comes from your shared services provider (SSP), in the user profiles and properties section. Sorry, I don’t know what to tell you to fix it.
Laura
It is a great day!
I activated SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure (because I needed Content Query Web Part) and guess what? Current User Filter also works, dropdown box being populated with information from current user profile.
I should read more about SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure in order to understand its influence over Current User Filter…
Luiza
What I thought about doing was Setting up groups and allow the people that wanted only that group to see, I started it, but never followed through with it. I think that this would be to hard for the average user. I love SharePoint. I think it’s the best thing MS came out with so far!!
just wanted to say thank you for great article. I am really impressed with Laura’s teaching skills. This is one the most logical and concise training tips I worked with ( in my long 15 years as IT professional).