Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Select SharePoint Task Lists to Show

Perhaps the single most powerful feature with IntelliGantt for SharePoint is the ability to combine multiple task lists into a single view. In this example we will show how the default 'all lists' works, demonstrate how to include specific lists and illustrate how they can be ordered. We will be working with two lists in this example, but from this you'll understand how to work with three, four and more also. As a teaser for a future blog post, YES!, you can include lists from other sites as well. But, that is for a future blog post. In the meantime...
Here is a 'project' site with two task lists. The first task list (named 'Tasks') was part of the site template when created. The second task list (named 'More Tasks') was added later as a Tasks App. If you install the basic IntelliGantt for SharePoint configuration you will automatically see all the task lists from the site combined into a single view.
Which SharePoint Task Lists are included in the view is determined by the configuration settings in your configuration.js file.
In the default configuration.js file included in the IntelliGantt zip bundle, you see the following. Specifically, you see the 'sites' values. Pay particular attention to the 'includeLists' parameter.
IntelliGantt for SharePoint comes with a single entry for the sites.includeLists array: '*'. This array is used to define one or more name matches for all the task lists in a site. If the only entry is '*', then all the task list names match. When IntelliGantt asks SharePoint for the task lists within a site it checks against this 'includeLists' value. IntelliGantt then displays them in the order that SharePoint lists them. What if we would rather see the 'Tasks' list listed before 'More Tasks'? Then we can update the configuration.js file to explicitly match the task lists in the order we define. First, let's use SharePoint's nifty file management features to check out the configuration.js file. That way, if we make a mistake (what are the odds?), it will be easy to revert to a previous working copy.
Next we will add the task list names to the 'includeLists' array in the order we wish to view them. These names are the Title of each task list.
Check in your changes and even add a comment so you can remember what you did.
Now when IntelliGantt asks the SharePoint site for all the task lists, it will match and order them according to the 'includeLists' array values and ordering.
What if we just want to show a single list? Again, back to editing the configuration.js file and adjust the array to contain the list title you wish to see.
Now only the 'More Tasks' task list will appear within IntelliGantt.

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