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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
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    Help actually using Linked Lists with SharePoint

    I've got an Access Web App hosted on our company SharePoint and have created a linked list in Access to allow me to track the documents in one of the Documents Libraries there. Only problem is, I can't actually do anything useful with that Linked list, since I can't add additional fields to that list in Access and I can't pull data from it with a data macro - like I can't even copy data from it...



    so um... what's the point in linked lists?!

    What I'd like to do is take this Linked List (effectively a live representation of the contents of this particular document library - customer site visit reports - , which also happens to have handy hyperlinks to the docs themselves!) and match the number on the document to the visit report record in the database. That way, team members just need to upload the visit report, refresh the web page and hit a button to automatically import the hyperlink to the record, viola a connection to the pdf document right there in the List View.

    If I can't do this, is there another workaround which doesn't rely on my manually importing a new unlinked list of the docs to work with?

    Thanks,

    N

  2. #2
    rpeare is offline VIP
    Windows XP Access 2003
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
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    5,442
    I don't know what you mean when you say '... created a linked list in access...'. Do you mean you have a field on a table with the appropriate file name and/or path to a particular document related to a particular customer and/or site visit? If your issue is connecting a specific document to either a customer in general or a customer site visit in particular you'd have to set that up in your data entry/uploading process to either attach it to the customer (so it appears no matter which site visit you are examining) or the customer AND site (so it appears only when you are examining a specific site visit). I don't know if I'm reading your post correctly but it sounds like you've just got a single repository for linked documents that aren't tied to a company and/or site visit.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
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    5
    Hi rpeare,

    I've added a new table, selected a SharePoint List and then selected a linked table. I've then selected the SharePoint document library I want, and Access has created a new linked table containing the details of the visit report file in that library as a new table - theoretically, this table updates when users add / delete files from the Document library. That new table contains a field called Name which is a hyperlink to a pdf document in the document library located on SharePoint.

    The first 6 chars of that pdf's file name are a visit report form document ID. I have another table in my web app which lists all the visits to customer sites using this ID. I'd like to match the hyperlink to the associated record in the Site Visits table. That way I have the report effectively tacked to the visit record.

    There's no way in Web Apps (as far as I can tell) that users can simply upload / attach a document to the visit record itself so I'm having to use this kind of workaround... which currently isn't working around

  4. #4
    rpeare is offline VIP
    Windows XP Access 2003
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
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    5,442
    So what you really need is a way to connect the linked document to a specific site visit, the site visit is the first 6 characters of the document name, the document name is stored in a table so can you not create a table (or add to the document table) a job number and update it with the first 6 characters of the file name? (update query using left([file name field],6) to get what you need)? As long as you run the query on any 'null' field it should be pretty quick and painless to run this query every time a file is uploaded.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
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    5
    Yup that's exactly what I want to do.

    I can import the entire contents of the SharePoint document library to an unlinked table and then either, add an additional field with the suggested left(6) idea which works great! I can then use a macro to match this new field to the Visit ID and import the link to the record no problems. The issue is that I can't a) create a new field / edit the linked table or b) use a macro to even read from a linked table - since my second idea was to basically just take to name string and do the left(6) to get variable with that Visit ID in.

    I haven't yet used queries as I'm still pretty new to this but just checking I can at least see the linked table in the queries builder in order to reference it, this isn't the case in the macro builder. When you say run the query on any 'null' field what do you mean? Do you mean, run it on the Left([Name],6) field and not the field with the actual link?

    (thanks for the help!)

    N

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
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    OK, so the Web Apps interface for query generation is different from Normal Access query editor. Anyone know of a walk-through which might help me get my brain around how this bit works please? Struggling to even find a decent help page for it

  7. #7
    rpeare is offline VIP
    Windows XP Access 2003
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
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    you should be able to create a copy of your table structure in a 'normal' database, then create an update query that does what you want, then copy the SQL to your web database and have it function identically. I haven't created a web database so I can't answer your specific question, but it *should* work.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
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    Are Web Databases the same as Web Apps? I know that Web Apps have a lot more limited functionality than std database. I don't even know how to get into the back end SQL part of the web app I've created, it's in SharePoint somewhere. Honestly the terminology on all these things is really confusing!

    I think Jeff Conrad's post here kind of hints at what I need to do in order to get this working. I might just buy his book too whilst I'm at it:
    http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/...d.php?t=260362

  9. #9
    rpeare is offline VIP
    Windows XP Access 2003
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
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    Your database is really two different things. Data and a User Interface. The user interface I think is what you're asking about. A MS web enabled database (access 2010+) gives you MS tools to build your user interface, hopefully making the process less painful. You could also build an independent 'app' in a different language to interact with your data, in essence a MS access user interface is a type of app you can use to interact with your data. Though I think more often these days an 'app' applies to a product you can install and use on a mobile device (tablet or smart phone). I do not know if you can build a user interface that will work on a mobile device built solely with MS tools, I would think you could, especially if someone were using the Windows tablet but I do not know for sure.

Please reply to this thread with any new information or opinions.

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