Hi everybody,

We use our SharePoint Online environment to collaborate on all our projects with a subsite for each project. On the parent site we have general information about all our projects including a calendar that contains all projects key dates. What we need to be able to do is show this calendar on the individual project subsites but with the information filtered to only contain events relevant to the project.

I've been playing around with this challenge for a while and haven't found any solutions that will work. Below are the approaches I have tried.

1. Calendary Overlays - Using a separate calendar on the subsite and overlaying a view from the parent site calendar achieves the desired result. The problem with this approach is that it requires a lot of admin (creating the view on the parent site calendar, adding the overlay to each appearance of the subsite calendar etc.) that can't be automated. There are simply too many projects starting and finishing for us to keep on top of this. This approach also creates problems when a user creates an event on the subsite calendar as it does not update in the main calendar.

2. Page Viewer webpart - This webpart displays the calendar's individual page in an iframe. Functionality and layout is poor and the data can't be filtered without having to still create the individual views.

3. Workflows that copy items between calendars - this doesn't work between sites, both calendars would need to be on the same site.

4. Copying and pasting code between pages in SPD - If this solution worked it would provide all the functionality required as it would add the calendar from the parents site as an app/webpart to the subsite. The webpart is added but there's something wrong with the code that means the calendar is not displayed. Is there a way to fix this?

Thanks in advance,

Have you thought about using Metadata to filter?

No I haven't, I'm not familiar with that method. Could you provide a little more detail please?

Thanks,
Dan

You may also want to look into Content Search or Content Query web parts. You can use them on the parent site to automatically roll up events from subsite calendars, (even as new sites are created).

The downside here however is that you won't have an actual calendar to look at, only a listing of events. That may be a dealbreaker

No problem.  Basically, you would need to perform the following steps:

1. Create a term group called projects in your term store (Accessed from your O365/SharePoint Online Admin site)
2. Create a term for each project
3. Create a new site column called "project" that is a managed metadata column, tied to that term group
4. Create a new content type, based off of the calendar type, and add the site column you just created
5. Every time you make a new calendar app, change the default content type to the new one you just created
6. Filter the calendars based on project
7. ??
8. Profit

Here are some articles to get you started:

https://support.office.com/en-nz/article/Introduction-to-managed-metadata-a180fa28-6405-4679-9ec3-81d2028c4efc

https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Create-a-managed-metadata-column-C2A06717-8105-4AEA-890D-3082853AB7B7

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Introduction-to-content-types-and-content-type-publishing-e1277a2e-a1e8-4473-9126-91a0647766e5

http://blogs.interfacett.com/how-to-apply-metadata-navigation-filtering-in-sharepoint-2013

Thank you for the instructions and related articles.

I already have a lookup field on the event type of the parent site calendar (as I have a list of all our projects). The field is set when a user creates an event so I'm able to filter using that column. Is there an advantage to using the metadata over that method?

Am I able to use the metadata navigation combined with another webpart maybe to display the parent site calendar on an individual project's subsite homepage?

Dan

John,

This is an interesting idea, although you are correct about the calendar view as this is the essential piece we really need.

Do you know if there may be any work around for this?

Dan

I like metadata a little bit better than lookup columns, but it depends on your needs.  Also, have you thought about this?  https://www.credera.com/blog/technology-insights/microsoft-solutions/building-a-sharepoint-list-aggregator-web-part-with-custom-properties/

Unfortunately I'm working with SharePoint Online and don't have Visual Studio so build my own webpart is very much out the question. Not to mention a distinct lack of coding skills on my part!

Thanks anyway though,
Dan

Hi Dan,

I understand you need to display specific view of Parent site calendar on subsite, please test the steps below:

1.I assume you have a calendar named Cal-Parent on parent site. I create a Calendar view to filter Meeting Category.
2.Open site with SharePoint Designer, navigate to Site pages, create a new web part page Full, Vertical.
3.Insert Data View > Cal-Parent, then save the web part to Site Gallery. Click Yes when dialog pops up.
4.Now access subsite via browser, create a site page, insert web part > Miscellaneous, you will find your newly created web part in Designer.
5.Add the web part and edit the properties > Selected Views, switch to the Meeting view.
6.Now you will see the expected calendar view and it will sync from the parent site calendar.

Re

Hi Rebecca,

Thanks for your reply, I haven't been able to follow all the steps.

I've managed to created the DVWP and save it to the Site Gallery, but when I try to add it to a page on my sub site I get the following alert and the web part is not added.



When saving the webpart to the Site Gallery and the dialogue below popped up I definitely selected Yes.

Do you know what I have done wrong?

Hi Dan,

Please create a new web part and insert Calendar list, you could refer to this article:

http://www.learningsharepoint.com/2012/08/12/sharepoint-2013-add-dataview-webpart-with-sharepoint-designer-2013/

If it still doesn't work, could you create a new Calendar list to test the issue.

Regards,

Hi Rebecca,

Thanks for your reply.

I've nearly got it working now, I'm unable to add events to the calendar from the subsites. I get the following message.

One problem with this is that it is still going to require a lot of configuration each time a new project is created.

Is it possible to either,
a) Create the view on the parent-cal and set the view the web part on the subsite uses using a workflow? Or,
b) Use this technique in reverse i.e. create a web part to add to the parent site that draws its data from the calendar lists in all the subsites?

I've successfully used a DVWP on the parent site to display all of the events in the calendars on all the subsites but this will only show the information as a list. I need it to show as a calendar. Do you know if this is possible?

Dan

Hi Dan,

As I tested in my environment, I can add items to Parent site calendar, it will sync to subsite. However, when I add items to subsite, it pops up the error as your situation. Since this is not the Calendar itself, it is a Data View Web Part.

If you need to use workflow to copy data from parent to subsite, by design, workflow cannot work across site, there are some workaround, please check the following:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sharepoint/en-US/1d4031d9-4f4b-4571-b67d-7fc5d976496b/how-to-copy-an-item-from-one-list-to-another-subsite-list?forum=sharepointcustomizationlegacy

Regards,