Repeating Rows? Any Alternatives?

  • 20 November 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 3 views
J
Badge

I have been asked to take an excel document that is being used to capture data and turn it into a SharePoint form.  The form will then be used to create a Tableau dashboard. (see example of form in screen shot). 

 

Background: 

  • Currently all the information is being gathered in an Excel document
  • After the information is gathered in Excel, it will be enterd into the SharePoint/Nintex form
    • The form will have several column types (Single Line, Multiple LInes, Choice, Date and Time, Person or Group, and Yes/No checkbox)
  • From there a Tableau Dashboard will be built off the data in the SharePoint formprol

Problem: 

    • What is the best way to capture the information in a Nintex form? Using repeating rows? or is there something else available?
      • In the Excel document I already have more than 300 rows of data
      • If I use Repeating Rows I need to make sure the data is accessible so it can be used in a Tableau dashboard.

 

I am using SharePoint 2013 and Nintex Forms 2013.  Also I am on a work enviroment so some actions are not allowed. 

Does anybody have any advice / recommendations on how to proceed?

  • Thanks!

 

2 replies

V
Userlevel 3
Badge +9
I had nearly the same scenario!
The problems with using Repeating Sections are:
- you are limited to the number of rows that may be stored
- difficult and slow Workflow execution for extracting information out
- difficult to have Tableau read the XML data that stores all the fields across all the repeating rows that's stored in a single Long Text field

So I used SharePoint's natural list view for using customized Views with filtering and sorting. A Nintex Form is used to create/modify data one row at time OR SharePoint's Quick Edit feature to see "all" rows and edit any value any where. Changes are committed when exiting Quick Edit.

If column validation beyond the basics is required I used Nintex Workflow to perform the lookups and adaptive range checks. The author is emailed with the error details and a direct link to the offending row. A ValidationStatus column is set to Valid or the validation error message.

I used SharePoint's Format View to implement row background colouring (leveraging the ValidationStatus column) to show which row(s) are valid (green) or invalid (red). So in SharePoint list view you can also see at a glance what needs corrective attention before letting Tableau retrieve the data.
K
Badge +12

@jennyiscool ....it all depends on your requirements.....each row can be each item or multiple rows can be part of 1 item. Or you can create multiple content types and then you can build the view as per your requirements.

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