Populating Notes field from Cascading Dropdown Selections

This was a solution I figured out for populating a notes field from cascading drop-downs. I’ve had some folks e-mail me asking for the actual implementation.

In my scenario, I was creating a Sharepoint form front-end that would create an Incident Ticket in BMC Remedy.

Here’s what I did.

1. Created an initial Sharepoint list (this was for the first drop-down) where a user selected a top-level category for tech help. This was a one colum list with just “Title” that looked like this:

Hardware Failure
Install Software
Password Reset
Service Request

2. Created a second Sharepoint list (this was for the second drop-down) Based on the selection above, I display sub-categories. This list had 2 columns; Title, SumCat. SumCat matches Title from 1^st list.

So based on above it looked like this:

Audio Conference Request, Service Request
Video Conference Request, Service Request
PC Bluescreen, Hardware Failure
Blackberry Broken, Hardware Failure

3. Created a third Sharepoint list (this is what populates the Notes field). Based on second-drop down, look up questions to help a tech know what the problem is.

This had two columns, Title, Body. Title matches Title column in 2^nd list.

For example:

Audio Conference Request, then the Body column had this text.
Conference Name:
Host Name:
Host Phone:
Date:
Duration:
# of lines:

When the notes field is populated; users would enter the relevant information: See screenshot above.

4. Created a 4^th Sharepoint list that holds the actual requests.

The columns are Category (lookup on 1^st list), Summary (lookup on 2^nd list), Notes (Multiple lines of text), OtherID (person or group).

Here’s the script; this was placed under PlaceHolderMain on the NewForm.aspx

$(document).ready(function() {
// alert(‘Working!’);

$().SPServices.SPCascadeDropdowns({
relationshipList: “RC_Summary”,
relationshipListParentColumn: “SumCat”,
relationshipListChildColumn: “Title”,
parentColumn: “Category”,
childColumn: “Summary”,
debug: true

});

$().SPServices.SPDisplayRelatedInfo({
columnName: “Summary”,
relatedList: “RC_Notes”,
relatedListColumn: “Title”,
relatedColumns: [“Body”],
displayFormat: “notes”,
childColumn: “Notes”,
debug: true
});

});
</script>
<script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript” >
function PreSaveAction() {
// alert(“PreSave”);
$(“input[name^=’fileupload’]”).each(function() {
if ($(this).val() != “”) {
// alert($(this).val());
var fpath = $(this).val();
var m = fpath.match(/(.*)[/\]([^/\]+.w+)$/);

// alert(m[2]);

$().SPServices({
operation: “UpdateListItems”,
async: false,
listName: “WorkInfo”,
updates: “<Batch OnError=’Continue’ PreCalc=’TRUE’>” +
“<Method ID=’1′ Cmd=’New’>” +
“<Field Name=’Title’>” + m[2] + “</Field>” +
“</Method>” +
“</Batch>”,
completefunc: function(xData, Status) {
// alert(“Status=” + Status + ” XML=” + xData.responseXML.xml);
}
});
// return true;

}
});
return true;
}</script>

I also created a new ‘CASE’ for SPDisplayRelatedInfo for the SPServices library. Note: This is hardcoded to look for a multiline textbox named “Notes”

// append to Notes field
case “notes”:
var outString = “Please provide supporting information:”; // This does display on page load
// Get relevant Notes from relatedlist

for (i=0; i < opt.relatedColumns.length; i++) {
$(xData.responseXML).find(“[nodeName=z:row]”).each(function() {

// outString += “* ” + relatedColumnsXML[i].attr(“DisplayName”) + ” *”;
outString += “* ” + showColumn(relatedColumnsXML[i], $(this).attr(“ows_” + opt.relatedColumns[i]), opt) + ” *”;

});
}

// alert(outString); Debugging

setTextFromFieldName(“Notes”, “” + outString + “”);

break;

// end of new ‘CASE’

At the end of the jquery.SPServices.js, I have added the following functions:

// Find the Notes field
function setTextFromFieldName(fieldName, value) {
if (value == undefined) return;
// alert(value);
var theTextBox = getTagFromIdentifierAndTitle(“textarea”,””,fieldName);theTextBox.value=value
}

function getTagFromIdentifierAndTitle(tagName, identifier, title) {

var len = identifier.length;

var tags = document.getElementsByTagName(tagName);

for (var i=0; i < tags.length; i++) {

var tempString = tags[i].id;

if (tags[i].title == title && (identifier == “” || tempString.indexOf(identifier) == tempString.length – len)) {

return tags[i];

}

return null;

}

// End of new functions