Stump the Panel: SharePoint Q&A

Hi, I've been noodling this for awhile and am completely stuck. I'm hoping someone will be able to point me in the right direction.

Caveat: I've had Designer for a week and am basically teaching myself.

Ok, here's the situation: I'm trying to see if I can modernize my department's hugely antiquated QA/QC document system. I know that SharePoint can manage all of the features we need - limited access, automated workflows, version history, etc.

But I can't figure out one super important feature. Our system is based on a semi-consecutive numbering scheme which we use to identify files and versions. It looks like this - xx.xx.xxxx.y, where x is a digit (record) and y is a letter (version). xx.xx is assigned by project, so really only the last four x's and the letter are what I need to deal with. NB: you can have xx.xx.1001.A and xx.xx.1001.B - totally ok.

If these numbers aren't automatically generated when someone creates/uploads a new document, I haven't made the process completely un-manual, which is part of our current problem.

I've tried two approaches so far, in lots of permutations both in lists and libraries:
1. Title as number or text + ID to generate the number, then maybe do some sort of concatenation to create a full doc number, or
2. Create a Next Available Number field and find a way to get people to use an item from a premade list

Neither of these is really working. The first doesn't solve the version part of the title (and sometimes the math gets wonky). I've toyed with some workflows and am having mixed results, but am continually running into the problem of getting SP to reference the most recent entry, which would make this whole thing a lot easier.

The second - while I can easily display the next available number - doesn't limit people to using that number.

I'm stuck. I've thought of lots of ways to automate individual pieces of this process, but then can't figure out how to filter out numbers that have already been assigned to documents, which makes the whole thing unwieldy and inaccurate.

I'm willing to try anything at this point. The goal is to make this whole process as automated as possible to remove redundancies and so people will actually use the system. If it comes to it, I'm ok with assigning numbers myself but letting SP handle all the rest of the work. But I think this is possible - somehow!

Thanks for your help!
Emily

Do you have access to Visiual Studio and can you write custom code?

I wish! I was hoping to avoid that.

If I can't get an automatic number to appear become part of the item, then I'd at least like it to be easily viewable to the user. Which still means I have to find a way to display "next available" easily, perhaps as part of a filtered lookup?
Thanks!

The option then becomes is to make users input required metatdata fields for the project, the document, and version when uploading a file. Then in your workflow, you can build a dynamic string with these pieces of information to get the Title you're looking for.

You'd also want to do some duplicate checking utilizing the methods described here.

It won't be foolproof, but might get you started.

Then I must agree with Eric on that one. There is a way to update items using javascript and the sharepoint webservices. If you can write javascript you could update the serial that way, but it would still rely on user input as Eric stated and again not really foolproof.

Thanks so much, I'll give those a shot!

Emily,
I have a solution that I've been working on that may or may not be applicable to your scenario, so I have a couple questions about some of your requirements.



Would it be possible to have a choice column containing all the possibilities of the "xx.xx" and ".y" values, so when a new item is added to the list, a user can just select these as appropriate for the item? Also, would "xx.xx.1001.A" and "xx.xx.1001.B" be considered versions of the same record, or are these completely separate (do you need versioning)?

My solution will create the autonumbering, but because of your identifier scheme, I'm trying to see if we could just use other columns in addition, to build out the full ID for each item by just making additional selections for the rest of the identifier as each item is created on the list.

Would something like that work?...can you provide some more information on how each ID is/should be created?

- Dessie

Hi Dessie,
Thanks for your reply! I'd really like to see what you're thinking of. Here's a little more detail.

xx.xx.xxxx.y --> this could be, for example, 01.23.4567.A
01.23 is a constant, so could be simply added on at another part of the process.
4567 identifies the record. A (or B, C, etc) identifies the version of that particular record. Since these are design documents they represent finalized versions of that design/test/protocol/whatever (major as opposed to minor, I guess). It is important that we track the history of each record, so knowing what's the next available for that record letter-wise is important.
It's also important to know what the next available record number is (4568 in this case), both so there isn't any duplication and to keep things somewhat logical and sortable.

How it works in real life: Someone wants to write a test protocol. They ask me for a number. I look at a big long spreadsheet and see if that protocol exists already. If not, I simply grab the next available number. If it does and the current version is not applicable, we do a revision and assign that number with a new letter.

I'm all for making a choice field as long as it creates a unique identifier for each record, either in the 4567 part of the A-B-C part, whichever's appropriate.

Of course, the EASIEST way to do this is simply have me do all the numbering myself. But that wouldn't be any fun, would it? :-)

Thanks!
Emily

Ok, couple more questions:

If the "xx.xx" part is constant (as in the "01.23" example), does this mean that all items will get this as part of their full identifier? Will this part ever change, or is this fixed (if its fixed, then this part is simply just concatenating the rest onto this for each and every item).

Can you use the built-in versioning to handle the letter-versioning? Does this have to be specifically letters (perhaps some sort of industry standard or guidlines you have to follow), or can it be numerical?...and, how far does this need to be able to increment for the version identifier? A, B, C only? A-Z (full alpha list)? AA-ZZ (double or more alpha)?

The wheels are spinning in my head for this, just need to make sure I'm covering all bases before I can say if what I have in mind will actually work or not :)

- Dessie

Correct, 01.23 is part of the full identifier, but could simply be concatenated on later. It's fixed by project, and I could keep all of a project's docs in one library and solve that problem.

A,B,C and so on have been our company's standard for years for "final" versions, while numbers were used inconsistently for very early drafts; these would theoretically "graduate" to letter versions. I'm not sure if it's an industry standard, but new hires don't seem at all surprised by it so it could be. Most files don't progress beyond C or D, but there are a few historical versions that are AA or BB. Not highly likely in the future, so these could be something I handled manually. Perhaps we could use the built-in versioning and create a workflow to switch it out to a letter? A=1, B=2, etc?

There's nothing technically wrong with switching to numbers, but it might be too much of a shift, especially considering I'm already trying to switch an internet database instead of a collection of a dozen spreadsheets and paper files somewhere in a closet.