Tell me more ×
SharePoint Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for SharePoint enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 6 down vote favorite
2

In Sharepoint 2010 whats the best way to view a list from another site collection.

I want to be able to sort on People and I want it to look like a listview.

(Why is there no easy answer to this question?)

share|improve this question
1  
If the sitecollections are on the same domain, you could use an iFrame? – Daniel Ziga Feb 23 '12 at 14:03
just found this discussion - do you have any new ideas about the issue? My scenario is as follows: The top level site collection includes a list of Meetings. Some of these meetings have a meeting room (therefore a different site colelction) with agenda, participants, etc. In addition, I plan to include 3 custom lists from the top level: Tasks, Decisions and Information. How can I use just the same list instance across different site collections? – user9366 Jul 9 '12 at 9:57

5 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

The DataView Web Part can do this. Alternatively, use the search engine to roll up content across site collections.

share|improve this answer
How do you use a DataView web-part in Sharepoint 2010? I thought they were obsolete now. – haymansfield Feb 23 '12 at 14:20
Yes, the new kid on the block is the XSLT Listview webpart. But it can only go across sites within the same site collection. – Lars Fastrup Feb 23 '12 at 14:47
@LarsFastrup the technique you are pointing to doesn't allow this. It allows to create a reusable DVWP, but the scope will remain the site collection. – Christophe Feb 23 '12 at 15:26
In sharepoint 2010 the DataViewWebPart is renamed to the DataFormWebPart? – haymansfield Feb 23 '12 at 15:29
@haymansfield SharePoint uses both names and it can be confusing. In the SharePoint Designer ribbon it is still called "Data View". – Christophe Feb 23 '12 at 15:32
show 4 more comments
up vote 0 down vote

There's an easy answer. It's called the Page Viewer Web Part, and allows you to display in your page the content of any other page.

share|improve this answer
3  
While possible, there are a lot of drawbacks to this approach. Things like a second set of scrollbars if there is more content than the viewer window is sized for. By default it will bring in all of the chrome from the other site, leading to a double navigation effect that will confuse users. This can be corrected somewhat by using IsDlg=1 in the querystring. If the other site has a different color scheme then it will bring that in as well, also confusing users. And then there's popups... – Dave Wise Feb 23 '12 at 16:19
@DaveWise agree, IsDlg=1 works well with the Page Viewer Web Part. I also have a workaround that addresses the scrollbars and branding issues, but of course it has its own limitations: usermanagedsolutions.com/SharePoint-User-Toolkit/Pages/… – Christophe Feb 23 '12 at 18:54
up vote 1 down vote

To answer your "Why isn't there an easy answer..." question... Site Collections are the top level containers for content in SharePoint and almost everything about them from settings to features to permissions to Content Types can be completely different from one to another. Because of this, no assumptions can be made when attempting to access content in another site collection as it is entirely possible that the core objects you are looking for simply do not exist. That is why accessing data in another site collection is so hard.

You can, however, use Web Services to access the data but this usually means custom code and some loss of integrity as data is serialized into more primitive forms.

share|improve this answer
I've tried the Lists.asmx/DataForm route, but it doesn't even seem possible to sort on a Person column. While I can see that a fully functional List view wouldn't make sense cross-site-collection, I'm just surprised that a simple read only view with similar styling (and basic stuff like sort and filter) isn't available OOTB. – haymansfield Feb 24 '12 at 8:40
I meant it doesn't seem possible to Filter on a Person column (Not enough points to edit my comment yet). – haymansfield Feb 24 '12 at 8:58
up vote 1 down vote

We solve all cross sitecol issues with search, and since almost all out farm designs span across sitecollections er use search alot. For example for news lists, navigation, rollups ETC.

To make it look like a list view will take some tweeking in xslt but no big deal

share|improve this answer
Agreed, Search Results Web Part is by far the easiest method to get cross site, even cross web application aggregation. – David Lozzi Feb 28 '12 at 20:21
Search is a good answer. You even get permission trimming with it. Just remember the results are only as current as your last search crawl. – Tom Resing Feb 28 '12 at 23:08
Also you can only fetch what is indexed. So for example a long news message with internal links and images might give problems – Anders Rask♦ Feb 29 '12 at 8:54
up vote 1 down vote

There is a mostly-easy way to do this. The other answers, especially this one are correct:

Site Collections are the top level containers for content in SharePoint and almost everything about them from settings to features to permissions to Content Types can be completely different from one to another. Because of this, no assumptions can be made when attempting to access content in another site collection

However, you can access content from other SCs semi-natively in SP2010 using Business Connectivity Services. This is one of the most powerful areas of SP2010, as it allows you to treat any data source - another Site Collection, a web service, an Oracle database, even a custom application - as a virtual list with virtual list items. That abstraction allows you to do all kinds of native SharePoint-y things just like you're using a local list. Super cool!

share|improve this answer
What is your approach to using Business Connectivity Services with Lists? I tried creating an external content type based on Lists.asmx: This rather brilliantly doesn't work as Lists.asmx uses non-primitive types. – haymansfield Mar 1 '12 at 11:09
@haymansfield you can create one-off BCS model adapters which map the remote web service to a logical entity, or you can create a bootstrapper BCS model adapter that can handle any contract. – Rex M Mar 1 '12 at 19:50

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.