It’s been awhile in this series since we looked at a DVWP. We’ve been building on an idea of using cascading dropdowns—where the selection of one dropdown limits the selections available in the next.

But you really want to use the Title column in the relationship list to make it easier to maintain later. I don’t blame you, especially if it’s something that is likely to change or have new entries in the future

We have to be deliberate in how we do this with SharePoint because the Title column is required by default.

SharePoint: Extending the DVWP – Part 17: User-Managed Dropdowns – Creating a Relationship list

SharePoint: Extending the DVWP – Part 16: User-Managed Dropdowns – Loading Data

SharePoint: Extending the DVWP – Part 15: User-Managed Dropdowns with Site Columns

Validation is the process of setting up a pattern that column data needs to match before the form can be submitted. In this screencast, Laura Rogers shows how easy it is to set up validation in a custom form data view web part, using SharePoint Designer.

Four articles from now, you’ll have cascading dropdowns on your DVWP. And you’re list owner will manage the content and the relationships from SharePoint lists.

You could add the PreSaveAction() JavaScript section directly to the page in SharePoint Designer (SPD). You could even add it to the master page, if that made sense for your project. But, I usually add it to a Content Editor Web Part (CEWP).

As part of the series, Extending the DVWP, we’ve been talking about creating a workflow that fires from a form action.