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If i create lookup column which in my case returns a meeting type (“Tourism”. “Planning” etc.) from a list in sharepoint it works fine until I try to inset that column as a document property (using quick parts) in Word 2016. All other columns work correctly displaying their value as document property fields except the lookup column which returns the index number (as  digit) of the item chosen rather than the value (text) that the column shows. i.e. if the user choses the 3rd item from the lookup, the name of that meeting correctly display in the document library column but appears as “3” when embed into the associated word document. Oddly when looking a the info panel in Word, and clicks more info – a box pops up which displays the value from the column (i.e. the meeting title in our case) but when you return to word it still shows the index number of the item . This is reproducible.
I’d tried creating another calculated column which was simply set as = to the lookup column – but it appears a calculation based n a lookup column is not allowed (it doesn’t appear as a choice when building the formula).

Incidentally, replacing the lookup with a choice that returns the meeting name works fine – a choice column embedded in Word as a document part works fine (returning the value shown in the column).
Problem with this approach is

  1. meeting names are used in several list and libraries and it is important to have consistent usage (i.e. the same names) and to be easy to add a new one – a list as the source of the lookups makes this easy.
  2. There is other data about each item looked up that is useful (e.. chair of meeting. clerk to meeting, parent committee) – that is only available when the item is a lookup (choice is single array).
  3. Any ways around this? Fixes? MS accept that it is a problem but say they have no plans to fix it as we aren’t important enough (OK – they didn’t quite say the last bit like that – but it’s the gist)
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