One of the hard things about using SharePoint to manage your information, is creating visual feedback based upon specific conditions within the information. In this quick, 4 minute demo, I show a technique that I use when generating sandboxes for live online SharePoint workshops.

I take the information from the registration system and insert it into a SharePoint list. There is a custom column called “Sandbox Status” that can be in three states: Requested, In Progress, Completed. Each of the states is a different color. This way I can visually scan the list to see where we are in the processing of sandboxes.

The way this is done is through the use of a calculated column. An “IF” statement is placed within the column to check the value of the “Sandbox Status” column. That’s pretty simple for anyone that knows a little about Excel formulas. The real problem is, how do you take raw HTML in a calculated column and make it display the output of the HTML, not the text of the HTML?

Christophe Humbert has come up with a simple solution for our “Visualizing Information in SharePoint“, live online workshop. He has created a Content Editor Web Part (CEWP) solution that you can drop on the page and it will automagically find the raw HTML in the calculated column, converting it into a visual display. There is no need to deploy the web part to the server. Everything needed is completely contained within the CEWP.

Here’s the screencast to show you how it’s done. If you like what you see, please join us for the November 3, live online workshop, “Visualizing Information in SharePoint“. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Download the screencast
Name: Visual Indicators for Sandboxes
File Size: 4.45 megs