As we come to the conclusion of this three-part series, believe it or not I've saved the best for last! But before we dive in, let's do a quick recap.
By end of the first week of September, Bamboo Solutions will launch three major releases for SharePoint 2007 (with their SharePoint 2010 counterparts available by the end of September):
- Alert Plus Web Part, Release 3.0 – New backend architecture for improved reliability
- Calendar Plus Web Part, Release 4.0 – Long list of new features
- List Rollup Web Part, Release 5.0 – See below
For the conclusion of this sneak peek series, I will be introducing the new List Rollup Web Part. As with the two products which preceded it in this series, List Rollup Web Part has been a part of the Bamboo family of products for many years now, with a large following in the SharePoint community. You've told us in your feedback that although the rollups produced by List Rollup Web Part meet your needs, the List Rollup Web Part interface is difficult to use to build rollups, and the resulting rollups are slow to show large results.
Well, Bamboo Solutions has listened, and we've improved both areas with a new interface and new architecture! Using a step-by-step List Rollup Designer Web Part, users can now build rollups more effectively. Here is a quick snapshot of the new interface:
As mentioned, we also changed the architecture. Updates to the architecture were delivered in two flavors:
- In previous versions of List Rollup Web Part, we produced resulting rollups into views called SharePoint Data Forms. Now we store the rollups in a query form called a List Rollup Schema.
- We now utilize SharePoint Item Query function to perform rollups, where rollups now take a fraction of the time to return data.
We are currently putting the final layer of polish on List Rollup Web Part, Release 5.0, so keep your eyes out for the upcoming release!
