by Frank

2013-11-06

Microsoft decided to deprecate Meeting Workspaces in Sharepoint 2013. These handy site templates are still widely used in SharePoint 2010 (SP2010). In this post I’m going to describe an alternative.

According to Microsoft, there are enough alternatives for Meeting Workspaces, they mention Lync meetings, OneNote, SP team sites or the My Site. I have looked at these alternatives, but these require a huge change in the way the end users work.

That’s why I created another alternative by using a standard SharePoint team site, connected web parts and workflows.

Create lists and views

A Meeting Workspace in SP2010 has the following lists: agenda items, decisions, calendar, documents and tasks. We will create these lists.

Let’s start with the calendar list:

  • Create the default calendar;
  • Create a new view called FutureItems;
  • Uncheck recurrence and workspace at Columns;
  • Create the filter Start Time is greater than or equal to [Today];
  • Create another view called PastItems
  • Uncheck recurrence and workspace and Sort by Start Time and choose for descending order;
  • Create the filter ‘Start Time is less than [Today]’.

Then we make the list Agenda items:

  • Add a custom list and call it Agenda items;
  • Go to List settings;
  • Change the name of the Title column in Subject;
  • Create the columns Time (single line of text), Comments (multiple lines of text) and Owner (person or group);
  • Now click on Add from existing site columns and Start Date;
  • Change the name of this column in Meeting Date, set it at required and set defaults to None.

Now make the list Decisions:

  • Add a custom list and call it Decisions;
  • Go to List settings;
  • Create the columns Description (multiple lines of text) and Owner (person or group);
  • Now click on Add from existing site columns and Start Date;
  • Change the name of this column in Meeting Date, set it at required and defaults to None.

The list Documents probably already exists:

  • Go to Library settings and click on Add from existing site columns and Start Date;
  • Change the name of this column in Meeting Date, set it at required and default values to None.

Finally the Tasks list:

  • Add a custom list and call it Tasks;
  • Go to List Settings;
  • Change the name of the Title column in Task name;
  • Create the columns Start date (date and time), Due date (date and time), Assigned to (person or group), Description (multiple lines of text), Status (choice) and Priority (choice);
  • Now click on Add from existing site columns and Start Date;
  • Change the name of this column in Meeting Date, set it at required and set defaults to None.

Creating the dashboards

The first dashboard we create is on the home page. For the dashboard, I choose a page layout with three columns. Add in the first column the Calendar web part. In the second column Agenda items and Decisions web parts. In the last column we place the web part for Documents and Tasks.

Edit the Calendar web part:

  • Change the view in FutureItems;
  • Click on Row with data send to and then Agenda items. As shown in the example below:

  • Select for retrieving Filter values, and then click Configure. As seen in the example below:

  • Choose at Provider name field for start time and consumer field name at for meeting date. As seen in the example below:

  • Click on Finish.

Do the same for decisions, documents and tasks.

Then we make a dashboard with the items from the past. Add the web parts again, set on the connection between the web parts in the same way. The only difference is the view of the calendar web part. Set up the view on PastItems. Link from the first dashboard to the second and vice versa.

Make the workflow

The Calendar list in Sharepoint offers the possibility for recurring items. Then one item will be created and is shown several times in the list or web part. This is a problem in this solution, because connecting the web parts doesn’t work with recurring events. There is only one item and therefore only one start time of the event. Filter out the other dates of the event won’t work.

To solve this problem, we create a workflow which create recurring events for us. In this example I create a workflow in SharePoint Designer that creates the same weekly event at the same time.

Create the variable Counter with as type Number. Then create the following Form parameters:

  • Quantity: Type Number
  • Title: Type Single line of text
  • Start date and time: Type Date and Time. Uncheck Allow blank values and set Display format as Date and time
  • End date and time: type Date and Time. Uncheck Allow blank values and set Display format as Date and time

Copy the workflow as illustrated in the following figure:

This workflow, created using SharePoint Designer, has one disadvantage. When you create multiple items, some of them in the summer time and some of them in winter time, the time of the event after the daylight-saving change is incorrect. For example an event at 1 p.m. in summer time is set in winter time at 12:00. When its summertime and you create multiple items that starts in wintertime there will be no problem.

When you use an on-premises environment with Nintex workflows you can solve this problem. You can use the ‘Calculate date’ action and specify that the time must be stored in ‘local time’ instead of UTC. This option isn’t available in Nintex for SharePoint Online.

About the author 

Frank