TODAY function

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• Monday, May 12, 2008 8:13 PM

   

   
  

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  Why not make it a date field instead of a text field? Then you have the option to set the default value to today's date & time.

   

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• Monday, May 12, 2008 8:22 PM

   

   
  

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  Because the objective is to generate a reference or document ID made up of text, date and time information such as:

  2008-IT-34568.45689.

  But, regardless of how this is to be used, the question remains: how to obtain the current time such as a VB now() function.

   

   

   

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• Monday, May 12, 2008 8:54 PM

   

   
  

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  By default, TODAY does not return the current time, as you have found.

   

  By using SharePoint designer you can use the IncludeTimeValue attribute to return date and time. I describe how to do this here: http://nickgrattan.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/filtering-views-by-time-and-date/.

   

  You should be able to apply this information to solve your problem.

   

  Regards,

   

  Nick Grattan

  ________

  Blog: http://nickgrattan.wordpress.com

  Web: http://www.nickgrattan.net

   

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• Tuesday, May 13, 2008 12:54 PM

   

   
  

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  I had already seen your workaround for filtering views by time - very clever.  But, in this case it doesn't apply because I am talking about getting this information at item creation time and I cannot alter the default new item webpart.

  I could possibly create a custom list item form in Designer but the solution would be limited to the library and thos created from its template.

   

  Isn't this a bug with TODAY? Afterall the description does say it returns a date-time serial.

   

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• Tuesday, May 13, 2008 1:29 PM

   

   
  

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  Looks like I answered a different question!

   

  The "Created" column has the date/time stamp of when the item was created. Can you create a workflow that's automatically executed when the item is created and then take the "Created" column value and format this as required and then copy into your text field?

   

  Nick.

   

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• Tuesday, May 13, 2008 3:55 PM

   

   
  

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  That would work except the user would never see it until they save the document and then edit the properties again.  Sort of defeats the purpose of a default value.

  I am thinking I may need to create a custom list form where I have more control over the fields and can actually include scripts to take care of stuff like that.

  It seems a pitty that such basic stuff like that slips through the cracks.

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• Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:57 AM

   

   
  

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  OK, I see your problem now. Yes, a custom list form is probably the way forward so best of luck! Nick.

   

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• Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:20 PM

   

   
  

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  Well Nick,

  you did put me down the right path.

  I have implemented a solution which ends up being much more robust than what I was aiming for- that is a good thing.

  I modified my EditForm.aspx adding a variation of the code you pointed to and it now fills in my document ID with the year and serial number (2008-12345678901).

  The problem now is that it only works when I edit a document's properties or upload a document to the document library.

  It is completly ignored when I save a Word 2003 document to the document library.  The "Web File Properties" dialogue that comes after saving the file seems to be a different animal alltogether called from Word with this URL:

  http://portal.mycompany.com/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?location=Documents/MyDoc.doc&dialogview=SaveForm

   

  Any ideas on how to make that form/dialogue be the same as the EditForm.aspx I already customized?
  
  Thanks,

   

  Code Snippet

  <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">
  <script type="text/javascript">
  _spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("fillDefaultValues");
  function fillDefaultValues() {
  //  setLookupFromFieldName("<<FIELD DISPLAY NAME>>", vals["<<QUERYSTRING VARIABLE NAME>>"]);
   mdate = new Date;  //Current Date

   mdate1= new Date; //date for begining of year
   mdate1.setFullYear(mdate.getYear(),"0","01");
   mdate1.setHours("0","0","0","0");
   
   var mid=(mdate.getYear()+"-"+(mdate.getTime()-mdate1.getTime()));

   setTextFromFieldName("DocumentID",mid);
   setFieldReadOnly("DocumentID", true)
  }

  function getTagFromIdentifierAndTitle(tagName, identifier, title) {
    var len = identifier.length;
    var tags = document.getElementsByTagName(tagName);
    for (var i=0; i < tags.length; i++) {
      var tempString = tags[i].id;
      if (tags[i].title == title && (identifier == "" || tempString.indexOf(identifier) == tempString.length - len)) {
        return tags[i];
      }
    }
    return null;
  }

  
  function setTextFromFieldName(fieldName, value) {
   if (value == undefined) return;
   var theInput = getTagFromIdentifierAndTitle("input","",fieldName);
   if (theInput.value == "" || theInput.value == undefined){
    theInput.value=value
   }
  }
  function setFieldReadOnly(fieldName, value) {
   if (value == undefined) return;
   var theInput = getTagFromIdentifierAndTitle("input","",fieldName);
   theInput.readOnly=value;
  }

  </script>
  

   

   

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