Automatically create and change the default view of a list based on what month it is

Question

Hello.  I have a simple tasks list where folks fill it out with details about projects they've worked on for that month.  There are a few columns where you select the project name, the description, the month and the year.  Using the month and year columns, I've created views for each new month that display only items entered for that month.  I usually create a new view, based on the previous months view, a couple of months in advance.  Then come the new month, I set the appropriate view as the default.

What I'm wondering is if there is an out of the box way to automatically switch the default view when it becomes a new month.  Better still, automatically create a view based on what month it is and then make that the default view for the month.

Answer 1

Have you thought about just filtering on the current month for the default view?

---

Paul Turner http://redmanta.co.uk/blog Twitter: @RedMantaUK MCTS:WSS,MOSS,2010 MCITP:2010.
Please remember to click "Propose As Answer" if a post solves your problem or "Vote As Helpful" if it was useful.

Answer 2

I was hoping for a way for me to keep all my past views so others can easily look through past months/years rather than having to go into the view and filter it... while at the same time eliminating the need for me to remember to set these views up each month.

Your suggestion is the best and easiest way to get there.. I agree.. I guess my question is more "how could I do that if I wanted to":)

Answer 3

Ive had similar requirements like this, and I went with a piece of metadata that had the value of "Month, Year", and used a default value for it so end users didn't have to monkey with it - you could use a workflow as well to set this value. Then we used metadata navigation on the left pane to browse from month to month. The end users seemed to like it. They love metadata navigation and metadata filtering and its really easy to turn on. I wouldn't go through the trouble of creating different views for each month.

---

Please mark my response as an answer if appropriate.
Learn.SharePoint.com

Answer 4

That sounds excellent.  Do you know of a good article / blog post / video that walks through a similar solution?