The Lightning Tools Data Viewer Web Part is now available as a pre-release with a full release version due on 29thMarch 2013.
We noticed that the SharePoint Designer 2013 “Design” page offering a wysiwyg design experience on SharePoint team sites has been removed. This has caused great discussions amongst the SharePoint community and was later confirmed by Microsoft that the Design interface was gone for good. Whilst Microsoft have good reasons for removing the design interface from SharePoint Designer 2013, it didn’t stop frustration that users would not be able to use the Data View Web Part without writing code. There are some good points of view on the removal of the design experience here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointitpropreview/thread/8f8e2cb3-a90f-4653-9d22-050f9f0d8612
Lightning Tools has therefore started development of a SharePoint 2013 Data View Web Part replacement called the Data Viewer Web Part (DVWP). The DVWP can be configured to connect to external data sources and allow the configuring of views, formatting of data along with conditional formatting all from within the browser.
Below is a screenshot of the configured DVWP connecting to a Microsoft SQL database:
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To configure the Web Part, you can easily step through the properties in the tool pane whereby you can configure connections to SQL, Oracle, Access, OData, REST, SharePoint Lists, External Content Types and more…
Building the datagrid is simple too. Once you have created your connection, simply check the checkboxes for each column that you wish to display and set other properties like sorting and alignment.
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Conditional Formatting also allows you to highlight important data, such as product stock becoming low. Users can apply the formatting to cells or rows and select from a color picker, or enter your own RGB codes.
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Once the data is displayed, and as long as you allow it, users will be able to Insert, Update and Delete data.
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An Insert form is created for you which enables you to write back directly to the external data source.
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Whilst the product is currently only available as a pre-release, we have set a date in March 2013 whereby the full product will be available. In the meantime, you can watch a video of the product here: https://lightningtools.com/products/data-viewer-web-part/
(Don’t forget to ‘Like’ the video on Facebook J )
If you have some good feedback and would like to become a beta tester, please let us know by emailing support@lightningtools.com
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