Skip to main content

How to get item ID in Calculated column using Document ID

In my previous post, I explained about a new feature "Document ID Service". Using this feature, we can resolve one of the basic problems we had for long in SharePoint history. And that is the title of this post!

There is no way you could get the item ID in a calculated column using ID field. When you try to create a calculated column, it is very evident that ID column is not listed under fields. However, if you go ahead and use ID column, it will not prompt any error.

For example, I have created a calculated column and it's formula is =[ID]. When I add a new item, this column returns 0 as shown below.
Calculated Column using ID field
However, if you edit an item, the calculated column shows the correct value. This has been the problem since MOSS 2007 version (I started my SharePoint journey with 2007 version, so I don't know about prior versions). One workaround was to create SharePoint Designer to do this calculation and set the value.

Now with Document ID feature, we can do a small tweak and get the item ID. If you notice carefully how Document ID is formed, the item ID is suffixed at the end. So we'll use Document ID column to extract the item ID. Now create a calculated column and if you observe, Document ID column is listed over there! This is how my formula looks like:
Formula

I'm doing string manipulations to get the item ID. One assumption I have made here is that the item ID will not touch 5 digits. I think this hard coding can also be worked out to make it generic.

Now when I add an item, this calculated column shows correct item ID as shown below.
Calculated Column using Document ID field

Instead of implementing SPD workflow, we can just use this out of the box feature to get item ID.

End Notes: This solution is not tested for all cases. So use it as appropriate. Obviously this is applicable only to Library and not to the List.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Document ID Service - New Feature in SharePoint

When I explored this new feature of SharePoint in Online (this feature is available in SharePoint 2013 also), I found it interesting because it solved one of the common problems people faced in SharePoint. I will first explain about this feature and I'll cover the problem and the solution in another post. This feature allows Site Collection Admin assign a unique ID to every document in the site collection out of the box. If you recall, there was no out of the box way to assign a unique number to the documents across libraries in a site collection. Yes ID column is unique but only within a library. Document ID column contains a number which is unique across libraries. To start with, let's have a look at a typical document library. This is a familiar view for SP guys. By default, you don't get Document ID column in a library. All Items View To get Document ID column, you need to activate a site collection feature "Document ID Service" as shown below. S...

How to update Person field with multiple values using REST API

Person or Group field in SharePoint is similar to a Lookup field. When you are updating this field using REST API, you need to append "Id" to the name of the column in the body construct. For example, the body construct looks like this: data: { "__metadata": { "type": "SP.Data. ListName ListItem" }, "Title": "First Item", " PeopleField Id": "4" }; The highlighted portions should be replaced by the actual List Name and Column Name. In the above example, the REST call is updating a List item with Title and People columns. How to get the value for user ID ("4" in the above example) needs a separate explanation and that will be my next post! The above example works fine if Person field is configured to accept only one value. If we change the Person field to accept multiple values, how do we pass more than one value in the REST call? Since we normally separate user names with semicolon in peop...

Restrict Future or Past Date in List

Many a times you will come across a requirement wherein you need to restrict user from entering future or past date in a List or Document Library Date column. Developers are inclined towards writing either event handler or javascript to achieve this. But, hold on! You can achieve this without writing a single line of code. I have a list which stores Employee details like Employee Number, Name and Date of Joining. Here I need to enure that Date of Joining will not accept future date. Navigate to List Settings -> Validation Settings. Here you can enter the formula to restrict future date as shown below. If you change the logical operator, it will restrict past date. Also, you can put message which will be displayed to user. Now, when you try to enter future date and try Save, you will see the validation message. So, next time you have similar requirement, you know where to try first before jumping into coding!