Creating a Dynamic [Today] Filtered View in SharePoint to show “Recent Stuff”

donnasresources@gmail.com — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 13:25:56 +0000

The [Today] parameter is a dynamic parameter that can be add some enormous benefit in creating a custom view. Using {Today] is powerful because it can filter a column based on the current date.

Some examples of ways to use the [Today] parameter are:

Displaying items created over the past week
- with a filter for showing “Created is greater than or equal to [Today]-7”
- This view could be called “Recent Stuff”
Displaying items or documents that have expired:
- with a filter for showing “Expiration Date is less than [Today]”
Displaying deadlines values that are less than 7 days from now:
- with a filter for showing “Deadline is greater than [Today]+7”
Showing all tasks that are due in the next 7 days or overdue:
- with a filter for showing “Due Date is less than [Today]+7 OR Status is not equal to Completed”

Steps to Create a [Today] filtered view:

Go to your Library or List Settings.
Click on Create a View.
In the view creation screen, scroll down to the Filter section.
- Filter for the desired situation. Use the examples above as a guide to set the parameters as needed.
- In this screenshot, I am filtering for all documents that have been created OR modified in the last 3 days. These settings result in creating a “Recent Stuff” view.
- When typing the expression using the [Today] parameter, make sure to type the entire expression without any spaces.

One limitation of the [Today] field is that it cannot be used for formulas in Calculated Columns.

How to Create a Dynamic [Me] Filtered View in SharePoint

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How to set a default expiration date using [Today] for a SharePoint Announcement List

donnasresources@gmail.com — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 13:11:02 +0000

SharePoint announcement lists are one of the most popular apps added to a SharePoint site. One way to make this app more useful is to set-up a default expiration date for new announcement list items.

The coolest trick is to enter the default value using the [Today] dynamic parameter. Then you have a built-in way to have items expire automagically after so many days past the initial creation date of the announcement. How sweet is that!

To set a default expiration date:

Go to the List Settings for the announcement list.
In the Columns section, click on the Expires column.
In the Default value area, select Calculated Value. Enter “[Today]+X” where X is the number of days later you desire the expire to happen. In this example, the default expire value is set to be 30 days later than today’s date.

Advantages of setting a default expiration date:

If you do not enter a default value for an announcement app list, then you will most likely find that the majority of the announcement list items will be created with no expiration dates because the expiration date is not a required field. As a result, the announcement list can get pretty lengthy as the oldest ones do not fall off. Of course to deal with this situation, you could tweak the view to show only “Current Announcements”. But you may have announcement list where it is nice to have a default expiration date value work upfront for you. An example scenario may be when an announcement app is being used as a bulletin board of items that employees are selling.

How to Create a Dynamic [Today] Filtered View in SharePoint