Create Personal SharePoint Views depending on an InfoPath field using [Me]

This article is a continue on the previous article "HOW TO Populate a List with the SharePoint Users"

Download

To download both articles, please click on the following link:

HOW_TO_Populate_a_List_with_the_SharePoint_Users.pdf

Problem

When publishing the previous form to SharePoint, and you promote the field Assign To, you will notice the newly created column is of type: Single line of Text.

Figure 3: View of columns.

When you want to filter this view, using [Me], you will receive an error

Figure 4: Edit View page, Set Filter.

The error you receive is: The value is not a valid text string

Figure 5: Error Message.

Solution

In general, we need to add a new column and create a SharePoint Workflow with the SharePoint Workflow Designer

1. Add a new column to the View

- Open the Form Library Settings page

- Click on Create Column in the Columns Section

- Enter Assign To User as Column name

- Select Person or Group as the type of the column

- Click on the Ok button

1. Create Workflow

- Open the SharePoint Designer

- Create a new workflow (Menu File ->New -> Workflow)

- Set the workflow name: SetAssignToUserField

- Select the SharePoint list where the workflow should be attached to

- Select Automatically start this workflow when a new item is created checkbox

- Select Automatically start this workflow when a new item is changed checkbox

Figure 5: Define Workflow, step 1.

- Enter the Step 1 name: SetAssignToUser

- Select Set Field in Current Item under the Actions

- Click on Field and select Assign To User (the newly created column in the SharePoint View)

- Click on Value, click on the Display Data Binding Fx button

- Select Current Item as Source

- Select Assign To in the Field dropdown box

Figure 6: Define Workflow Lookup Dialog Box

Note:

Note that we just link the Assign To field (Created by InfoPath and keeps the User ID) to the Assign User To column, which is of a Person Group type.

SharePoint will execute the lookup automatically and will shows the Display Name in the view

- Click the Finish button

1. Add the filter

- Go back to the SharePoint List

- Modify the Current View

- Select Show Items only when the following is True radio button, under the filter Section

- Select Assign User To from the Show the items when column dropdown box

- Enter in the value textbox [Me]

Figure 7: Filter Settings of the View

- Click on the Ok Button