Custom Parameters with SharePoint Filter WebParts

In This Topic

Nevron SharePoint Vision WebParts can serve as consumer of two types of web part connections:

Fields
Rows

Both types of connections are exposing the consumed values as custom parameters. This means that you need to manually create expressions that consume values send to the Nevron Web Parts, as no custom parameter value has any predefined meaning for the Nevron Web Parts.

The following sections in this topic describes the two ways of consuming web part connections in details.

Consuming Fields Connections

In a fields connections a field provider sends a named value to a field consumer. Nevron WebParts can consume an arbitrary count of field values, since in a field connection the field provider, gives a name to the value that it sends to to the consumer. Field values send to the web part can be consumed by all expressions. Nevron WebParts expose the consumed field values as custom parameters, with the SPF_ prefix (stands for SharePoint Field).

For example: in the My First Dashboard in SharePoint sample, the web part filters parametrization method uses a Choice Filter Web Part, the name of which is: RegionName. In the pivot filtering expression the value send by the Choice Filter Web Part to the Chart, is consumed in the pivot filtering expression via the Params!SPF_RegionName.STR reference.

It is important to know that the field name send by the field provider web part is normalized prior to being consumed by expressions in Nevron Web Parts. This is required in order to transform arbitrary names, into valid for expressions reference names. The normalization process replaces all spaces and symbols that are not digits or letters with the '_' (underscore) character. For example if the Choice Filter Web Part was named as Region Name 3, in expressions it can be consumed as Params!SPF_Region_Name_3.STR.

Also important is that all field values are consumed as strings. This means that if for example you are sending a Date Filter value to a Nevron WebPart, the date will arrive as string and you need to use the DATETIME function to reconstruct the date from the string.

The most common usage of Fields Connections is with SharePoint Filter WebParts. This is because all SharePoint Filter WebParts can serve as fields providers and send a named value to a field consumer. It is however possible to use Nevron Web Parts with all types of web parts that can act as field providers.

Nevron SharePoint Vision brings a new usability dimension for SharePoint Filter WebParts. This is because the standard webparts for SharePoint can typically consume the values send by filter webparts only in their filtering process. Since Nevron WebParts can consume values send by filter webparts in any expression, and expressions can be used to control the data source connection, data filtering, data aggregation and data visualization aspects of the web parts, in the context of Nevron SharePoint Vision, SharePoint Filter WebParts can be used to control practically everything.

Consuming Row Connections

In a row connection the row provider sends a row (array) of values to a row consumer. Nevron WebParts can consume a fixed count of row values (currently up to five), since in a row connection the row provider does not give a name to the row that it sends to to the consumer. Rows send to Nevron WebParts can be consumed by all expressions. Nevron WebParts expose the consumed rows as custom parameters, that can be referenced in all expressions like this:

Params!SPR_1.STRARR - references the first row.
Params!SPR_2.STRARR - references the second row.
Params!SPR_3.STRARR - references the third row.
Params!SPR_4.STRARR - references the fourth row.
Params!SPR_5.STRARR - references the fifth row.

The SPR_ prefix stands for SharePoint Row and is immediately followed by the one based index of the five available slots.

All row values send to Nevron Web Parts are consumed as string arrays.