An auction site in SharePoint

Question

I would like to create some sort of auction site in SharePoint. It does not have to be a fantastic one, it has to provide service to +/- 800 employees. It does not actually have to have auctions with expiration dates etc. Just being able to offer objects for sale and request object will suffice. And all the extra's is ofcourse nice to have.

My question is to shed your ideas on how to implement this.

An example would be to convert a blog to make users able to add objects to auction. Or maybe use a combination of forums.

I am looking forward to your ideas!

Answer 1

I would create a content type which inherits from Item. To this, you add fields you want people to describe items, such as Price, URL to preview Picture, item details, who to contact, etc.

Then add this content type to a list which will host the items in the auction. People then simply create items in the list for each thing to auction off, providing a URL to a picture somewhere of the item (maybe stored in a picture library).

You could also inherit the content type form Picture Library, instead. This means that each item in the Auction is actually a picture uploaded the library, with the other columns filled out by the users auctioning the items. This will save you having to upload the picture elsewhere and getting the URL into another field.

Finally, create a View for the list in the normal way, and try out the different View Styles available in the Create View page to test how they look.

If you're wanting to do some more advanced things with displaying, you can open SharePoint Designer, point to the Auction list, and experiment with the design surface to change the way the items are shown.

Answer 2

I would use a content type based on the Announcements list so you can take advantage of the built in expiration for when auctions end. You'll also need to have a custom list for bids that has a lookup to the announcement item list.

You're looking at custom forms and DVWPs to bring it all together. You'll probably want to look at jQuery for some AJAX stuff if you want to start displaying data in real time.

I tried to start an auction project build, but didn't have the time to work on it since there was no internal need for it.

Answer 3

You probably want to have the possibility to assign users write permission to their own items only. AFAIK there are only a very few lists that offer this out of the box.

Does someone have an overview about with lists can be used for this?