SpooblCloog

SharePoint Out of the box Limitaion Cloog

A thing on a thing on a thing

This is a term I just invented to refer to things we have to do to get around the limitations of sharepoitn out of the box
example:::

In the marketing subsite I have a document library - and I want to be able to classify something as either product related or service related.What I have tried:I started with 3 columns1. a "product or service" choice column (that has 2 choices prod or svc)2. a "Products" choice column (with all the products listed as choices) to classify which "product" the marketing document relates to.3. Ditto for the "Services" column

I was able to get things working pretty well with this scenario - but it is not very "pretty" - and puts too much responsibilty on the users to enter the right thing.

Improvements I'd like to make:
1. A separate list for the products - the doc lib needs to look up the product from another list that has additional info about the products (preferrably at the site collection level - so that list can be used for lookups on other sites as well)
2. ditto for the list of services
3. make the "product or a service" column a calclated one
4. Perhaps have prods and services in the same list? - although they have different attributes - so 2 lists is probably okay

What I am having issues with:
1. I got the calculated column to work - using this formula

=IF(Producx<>"",IF(Servicez<>"","Both","P"),IF(Servicez<>"","S","n/a"))

works like a charm

BUT you'll notice the funky names of my fields - thats because those are faux fields - with the products hard coded into the choice list

when I try to use my fields that are REAL lookup fields to the Products LIST - I can't refer to that field!

2. I am going to try creating a formula in SPD and see if that works -BUT I am struggling with a "server returned a non-specific error" issue (anybody have tips on how to troubleshoot that?) I will post about how that works out - later...