The ostensible purpose of the Calendar Overlay feature in SharePoint 2010 is to aggregate multiple calendars into one master, or roll-up calendar. The appointments in each calendar can display in an assigned color, allowing for a quick visual impression of which appointments belong on which sub-calendar.

In my previous blog post, I described how the SharePoint 2010 Calendar Overlay feature could be used to color-code individual appointments in a single calendar. The trick is to create views of types of appointments (based on perhaps a custom metadata column you might add to the Calendar). The Calendar Overlay can then be used to assign a color to each view. Then, each appointment in that view will have the assigned color.

This post shows another feature of Calendar Overlay: Showing items that are not on a calendar. In our example, the IT department has the default Team Site Calendar that they use for general items. In addition, they would like to include on this calendar the anticipated end date for their major projects, and the review date for the various contracts they have with vendors. This information is already captured in a Project List and a Contracts and Agreements Library. Both the Library and the List have a column for a date. Using these I can (a) create a view for each one that is a calendar, then (b) use Calendar Overlay to roll those dates up into a master Team calendar.

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In our Introduction to SharePoint Foundation / Server 2010 course, we briefly mention that SharePoint limits the total URL length of any location in a site: Depending on some variables, it can be up to 256 to 260 characters. (See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff919564.aspx for a technical explanation.) In addition, you’ll run across a 255-character limit for URLs in lots of other places. For example, if you want to paste a link into an email, your email program may not accept URLs longer than 255 characters. In some SharePoint sites it can be surprisingly easy to hit that character limit. Some of the things that can eat up URL space are:

• Long names for lists or libraries
• Use of folders and subfolders
• Long names for documents or list items
• Multiple levels of subsites

In this post I’ll discuss how to help keep that length under control by smart management of lists and libraries.

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How to video: Create Optional Cascading Drop-Down Filters on SharePoint List Forms

I knew I was going to like the ability to customize list item forms in SharePoint 2010 using InfoPath. The ability to filter drop down list choices based on a previous selection in the form is something many people ask for.

I have created a SharePoint 2010 tutorial/training  video that shows how to customize the new item form in InfoPath, wire up drop down choice lists to information in a SharePoint list and filter and have the choices in one drop down filter the choices in the next. And yes, the use of the filters is an option for the user.

The facilities department is responsible for equipment in offices, manufacturing and retail sales locations in thirty or more buildings located in about a dozen cities in three states. This solution gives users the choice of picking directly from the entire list of buildings or filtering first by state and city (see screenshot above).

The video below will walk you through the entire process from creating a custom list, adding a lookup column that pulls back multiple columns of meta data, customizing the list item form in InfoPath and wiring up the optional cascading filtered drop down choice fields.

In my opinion, lists and libraries are the heart and soul of SharePoint. When I first installed the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Technical Preview, the first thing I did was create a new list just to see what the most obvious changes were. Note: This post and all scresnshots are from the Technical Preview and things may change before SharePoint 2010 is released to the public.

I use custom lists for lots of things, so I started by creating a new custom list. The creation process wasn’t very different from the process in SharePoint 2007.

The List Ribbon:

Very quickly I noticed that the familiar toolbar at the top of the list had been replaced by a ribbon, similar to the one in the Office 2007 applications.

The default view of the ribbon after creating a list is the List ribbon. Although I’m used to using the menus, the ribbon allowed me to more quickly create views, create columns, change list permissions, go to list settings, and much more.

The New Item Form and the Edit Ribbon

To add a new item to the list, I switched to the Items ribbon and clicked the New Item button. Instead of switching to a new page to add my new item, a new form appeared in front of my list and it appeared the lights were dimmed on SharePoint and new form had a spotlight on it. The new item form had a ribbon itself with quick access to Cut, Copy, and Paste commands, a button to attach a file, a spell check button, as well as the expected Save and Cancel buttons.

The Items Ribbon

When I checked the box beside one of the items I added in my list, I saw options to work with that item in the Items Ribbon. From here I could view the item, edit it, delete it, and change its permissions. I cold have done more if my simple custom list had more functionality.

Allow Duplicate Values?

One of the things that has always frustrated me is that I didn’t have a good way to keep people from entering the same item multiple times in a list. In the Additional Settings section for the Single line of text, Number, Currency, Date and Time, Lookup, Person or Group, Business data, and Managed Metadata there is a setting for Allow Duplicate Values.

If you select to not allow duplicate values for a particular column, and you try to add a new item with an existing value in that column, you will receive an error and have to fix the error to proceed.

Column Validation

In the past, we didn’t have any way to validate a user’s input in lists and libraries. When you add new columns of type Single line of text, Choice, Number, Currency, or Date and Time you will see a section called Column Validation. Here you can enter Excel type formulas that must evaluate to True before the user can add the item to the list.

If the user’s input doesn’t validate according to your formula, the User Message you entered will be displayed to the user.

There are also validation settings on the list itself that work similar to the validation settings on the columns.

Metadata Navigation

In SharePoint 2010 we’ll be able to better locate our data based on its metadata. This can be configured separately on each list and is a whole other blog post in itself. I thought you might want to see a screenshot of the settings though, so here you go!

Form Settings

In the past, if you wanted to change the way a form looked in SharePoint for entering new information or editing information, you had to create a whole new form using SharePoint Designer. Now, all those forms are InfoPath forms and selecting the option to edit the form opens it in InfoPath where you can make any changes you want, then just republish the form.

Conclusion

I’m sure that as we all dig deeper SharePoint 2010 we’ll find even more goodness there, but these were the first things that caught my eye and I wanted to share these with you. I think these are all significant advances over lists in SharePoint 2007. What do you think?