Can I do a lookup to an external list?

  • 15 November 2016
  • 2 replies
  • 27 views

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I am implementing a Travel Request Form; one of my requirements is to do a budget lookup.  I am on Standard, I cannot use SQL Request.  

First drop down:  Our organization has Divisions that may have access to multiple account groups, i.e. the Tech Division has access the accounts for the CIO as well as Tech purchases.  Select a Division from a list of Divisions.  This is a lookup field in the List to a list called 'Divisions'.

Second drop down: The list of account groups is filtered by the Division above.  ListLookup into the 'DivAcctGroups' list filtered on the Division name from above.

Third drop down: Individual accounts. I have an External List with the account group, the account, and the budget available in the account.  Filter the External List, 'TravelBudgetAvailable' on the Account Group value from the second drop down, to pick an individual account.

Calculated field: Lookup into the external list, 'TravelBudgetAvailable', on the account field, based on the value from the third drop down, and return the budget available.

This all works in Preview!  However, when I attempt to save the form, I get the following error:  

Sorry, something went wrong
Search could not be performed. The underlying CAML query could not be executed.
Technical Details


Troubleshoot issues with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.

Correlation ID: 38acb79d-94d4-50c2-ba48-16175c094406

Date and Time: 11/15/2016 9:24:17 AM

Are lookups to External Lists supported?  They appear to work up to a point.


2 replies

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I have found a similar question from another user: NICOLA KARKANIS stated the issue much more elegantly in " ".  I would say it is the same problem.

If I create a Single Line of Text column in the list and link the SharePoint Lookup to an external list to that column, I can save the form, so it appears to be the Repeating Section.

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I wound up working around the problem. 

 

It appears that I cannot save a reference to an External List in a repeating section; such as a List Lookup to an External List.

 

What did work was retrieving a value with a calculated field, based on lookups from regular, non-External Lists.  It may still use a lookup, but it returns a value, not a reference to a list.

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