How to set Boolean metadata using UpdateListItems?

Question

I am trying to use the UpdateListItems Web Service API call to create a new (customised) folder and set meta data at the same time. Here is my batch element:

    <Batch ListVersion="1" OnError="Continue" xmlns="">
       <Method Cmd="New" ID="1">
          <Field Name="ID">New</Field>
          <Field Name="FSObjType">1</Field>
          <Field Name="BaseName">Students A/AHN (AHCJD1001)</Field>
          <Field Name="ContentType">Student Folder</Field>
          <Field Name="StudentID">AHCJD1001</Field>
          <Field Name="Surname">AHN</Field>
          <Field Name="Status_x0020_Code">C</Field>
          <Field Name="Archived">1</Field>
       </Method>
    </Batch>

Now, it all works perfectly - EXCEPT the Archived field. That is a boolean field in SharePoint and nothing I do in this batch allows me to ever set it to true. All the other fields work fine, setting surname, student ID, content type and status code. I have tried using 1 and True as Archived values, neither works. It always ends up as "No" in SharePoint.

Any ideas?

Chris

Answer 1

I got really curious what the diagnosis is. I've double checked and for me such Batch works:

<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>
<Batch xmlns:xsi=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\" xmlns:xsd=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema\" OnError=\"Return\">
    <Method ID=\"1\" Cmd=\"New\">
        <Field Name=\"Title\">Test</Field>
        <Field Name=\"ID\">New</Field>
        <Field Name=\"Done\">TRUE</Field>
    </Method>
</Batch>

Works with "TRUE" and "True".

And what do you get in xml returned from UpdateListItems?
Mine (check ows_Done for the boolean column):

<Result ID="1,New"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/">
<ErrorCode>0x00000000&lt;/ErrorCode>&lt;ID />
<z:row
ows_ContentTypeId="0x0100C27C8A4A9DD66247971ECA37E457EF11"
ows_Title="Test"
...
ows_ID="39"
ows_Done="1"

So I've checked with

<Field Name=\"Done\">1</Field>

and it works as well! :)

Answer 2

I recheck this issue and it works fine with my code snippet. What I did is, added one column Archived of type (Yes/No (check box)).

Take one boolean variable inside your code.

bool IsArchived = true;


<Batch ListVersion="1" OnError="Continue" xmlns="">
       <Method Cmd="New" ID="1">
          <Field Name="ID">New</Field>
          <Field Name="FSObjType">1</Field>
          <Field Name="BaseName">Students A/AHN (AHCJD1001)</Field>
          <Field Name="ContentType">Student Folder</Field>
          <Field Name="StudentID">AHCJD1001</Field>
          <Field Name="Surname">AHN</Field>
          <Field Name="Status_x0020_Code">C</Field>
          <Field Name="Archived">IsArchived</Field>
       </Method>
    </Batch>

This is what i did and it worked as expected.

Answer 3

I blogged about this here. The blog entry talks about the Content Query Web Part and does not use Web Services but I think in principle the issue is the same. Bottom line, use "1" for Yes and "0" for No.