Beginner Question: Extracting information from Document Library

Question

I'm really sorry I know it's a beginner question but I need to learn so bear with me...

Sharepoint 2007

I can manage the Security no problem inside Sharepoint as I was an Administrator before, what I need to learn now is how to create "web pages" (or web parts I'm not sure of the good terminology).

So basically I know the architecture of my site that I will use.

It will be different Document Libraries containing reports that will be updated regularly.

the library will have those information that i will need later

1 - Name of the documents that will be available and a link to the "current" version all the time (I know this link doesn't change) 2 - I will create a column in the library to tell me how long it's been that this file has been updated (DATEDIF)

So I need the 2 following information :

1 - How can I create a view "extracting" information from a "Library" column

I want to have a table in a Content Web Part that will give me the number of days since last updates (so information that can be taken from the library.

I know the link to the current file stays the same I'll figure out how to give access to the older versions once I get my table done.

If you also know a nice place that I could learn about all those little things it would be greatly appreciated to give me the information.

Thank you

Answer 1

The first thing I would suggest is to use Content Types for your documents.

Basically this means when the reports are added, they are assigned to a Report Content Type you create. You don't need to add any more columns here, just ensure it inherits Document as a parent. You can create content types from Site Settings.

The reason for the content type approach is you say you have multiple libraries. As long as each library has the content type added, and the reports have the content type associated, then you can use the Content Query Web Part to roll up a list of all the documents by that content type. It will look across all libraries and pick out only the documents with that specific content type.

You'll want to then alter the view so it shows as a table, and also does your datediff that you want. Have a read at this post on Heather Solomon's blog on how to customise the XSLT used to render the results of the Content Query web part.

Once you get the overall layout working right, you'll need to pull in the Modified Date from each document in the results, and apply your datediff formula. For this you'll have to do a bit of XSLT manipulation on the dates. Our very own Marc Anderson has done this for a long time and has many blog post about editing the XSLT for DataViewWebParts. Most of the time the same rules apply to Content Query Web Parts, so have a read at this blog post on his site to get started.