Sharepoint View Filter (how to check for nulls in Scheduling Start/End Date)

Question

I am trying to use the built in sharepoint U.I to setup a filter for Scheduling Start Date & Scheduling End Date.

However I noticed that if you setup something with a "Scheduling Start Date" as "Immediately" it will put nothing in the "Scheduling Start Date" column.

This leads me to think that is is null or empty.

However I need to check for this but I can't figure it out.

If I do

It will fail. I also tried to compare against "null" but it says it can't use this to compare it. So how can I check for this "immediately" case?

If I was writing this in code it probably like

 if(startDate == null || startDate <= [Today])
{
   // do something
} 

So how do I do this in the U.I or how do I right my own filter?

I am having the same problem with "Scheduling End Date" if it is set to "Never"

Answer 1

The easy answer is to make the fields required and you don't hae to worry about null values ;-).

In 2007, it was DateColumn is less than or equal to [Today] OR (clicking the add additional filters hyperlink) DateColumn is equal to (leave the field empty). It should still hold true in 2010, I haven't heard of changes to the list view filters.

Answer 2

If you set item scheduling to start Immediately, internally the Scheduling Start Date is set to 01/01/1900. So, you should be able to test for <= [Today] and get items that are set to Immediately.

Similarly, Never equates to 01/01/2050

Here is the reference from MSDN:

ScheduledItem.StartDate

ScheduledItem.EndDate