So recently I had to perform some custom code that would add an entry from a people picker control to a user\group column and back again (on another form). Going from the people picker control to SharePoint is really easy (the code snippet’s below are obviously vb.net. I am trying to keep most of my examples on this site in C#, but this particular client I wrote this for was a VB shop at the time).
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Protected Sub btnSave_Onclick(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnSave.Click 'I use a dictionary here as I find it a very efficient method for holding all 'my data columns and their values (I have a lot more than shown here) Dim dataToInsert As Dictionary(Of String, String) = New Dictionary(Of String, String) Dim spControl As SharePointControl = New SharePointControl 'SharePointControl is a custom class for all my SP data access If (ppManager.ResolvedEntities.Count > 0) Then Dim manager As PickerEntity = TryCast(ppManager.ResolvedEntities(0), PickerEntity) dataToInsert.Add(AttendanceSupportStrings.ManagerColumn, manager.Key) Else lblMessage.Text = "Manager field cannot be blank" Exit Sub End If '... 'do other validation and value storage here '... Try spControl.AddListItem(SPContext.Current.Site, dataToInsert) Catch ex as exception lblMessage.Text = (String.Format("An error occurred adding this entry. Error returned: {0}", ex.Message)) lblMessage.Visible = True End Try |
Next, cast the value to an SPUser type and update the list. Please note: I realize some of you may be wondering why I am not going directly from the people picker to SPUser. The reason being is that in most cases you are updating more than one field at a time and I wanted to show you a method (at least the one I use) to store columns of multiple types
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'Use the dictionary key as the column name and the value as the column value Sub AddListItem(sPSite As SPSite, dataToInsert As Dictionary(Of String, String)) Try Using Web As SPWeb = sPSite.OpenWeb Dim splist As SPList = Web.Lists(AttendanceSupportStrings.AttendanceListName) Dim listItem As SPListItem = splist.AddItem() For Each dictEntry As KeyValuePair(Of String, String) In dataToInsert Select Case (dictEntry.Key) Case AttendanceSupportStrings.ManagerColumn listItem(dictEntry.Key) = Me.GetEmployeeByID(sPSite, dictEntry.Value) '... 'More conditional updates here '... End Select Next listItem.Update() End Using Catch...... Private Function GetEmployeeByID(sPSite As SPSite, userName As String) As SPUser Dim serviceContext As SPServiceContext serviceContext = SPServiceContext.GetContext(sPSite) Dim profileManager As New UserProfileManager(serviceContext) If (profileManager.UserExists(userName)) Then Dim spUser As SPUser = sPSite.OpenWeb.EnsureUser(userName) Return spUser Else Throw New UserNotFoundException("This user is not found in SharePoint. For the workflow process to proceed ensure user has valid email") End If End Function |
That may seem like a lot of code just to upload, but remember it was written to handle more than just the one column. It also illustrates a method to upload an entire list row’s worth of data.
Now to go from a User Column to a people picker is quite a bit less code because I am only doing it one column at a time and access the column directly. I am not building a dictionary to hold different field types nor updating a number of fields at once. However, I do think that going from a User column to a People Picker is a bit more convoluted. You actually first cast the user column into a SPUser object, then you put the user object’s login name into a Picker Entity. You then add the picker entity to an ArrayList and finally you then add the array list to the picker object.
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If (Not spListItem(AttendanceSupportStrings.UnionRepColumn) Is Nothing) Then Dim unionContact As PickerEntity = New PickerEntity() Dim unionList As ArrayList = New ArrayList() Dim userUnion As SPUser = New SPFieldUserValue(spListItem.Web, spListItem(AttendanceSupportStrings.UnionRepColumn).ToString).User unionContact.Key = userUnion.LoginName unionList.Add(unionContact) ppHRCContact.UpdateEntities(unionList) End If |
So hopefully this illustrates a method that can be used to take a value from a People Picker in a custom form up to SharePoint and then back again.
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