Will Modern Pages ever allow "Web Part Connections" (to link related lists)? How about "Filters"?

Steel Contributor

One of the most powerful and, frankly, underused features in SharePoint (2010 and 2013) was the concept or practice of "connecting" related web parts. We used it ALL the time for things like:

  • A list of Vendors connected to lists of Quotes or Invoices
  • A list of Requests connected to a list of related Log Entries (each step in the request process generates a Log entry)

Also, it was helpful for creating "template" pages. For example, we would have a Query String Filter that connected to a bunch of lists on the page, each of which had a common column (e.g.: "Term"). So, when creating a course catalog, we didn't have to build a new page for each term, just use that template page with the right query string in the URL. 

 

As slick as the Modern Page experience looks and feels, it seems like they're driving toward the model of creating tons of separate pages rather than a few reusable ones. While creating these pages is easier in the Modern Experience, enforcing consistency between them is pretty much impossible (that's where the idea of a template page really shone).

 

So, since I can't find any chatter about these features/functions whatsoever, I figured I'd ask here to see if anyone else had seen or heard anything. Heck, maybe even someone from the mothership (calling @Mark Kashman or @Jeff Teper) could chime in and let me know if I should just give up hope on ever using Connections or Filter web parts on Modern Pages.

42 Replies
They have already discussed at SPC and I want to say I had seen something on the AMA about it, that they do want to look at bringing this functionality in the future. Luckily, we still have access to classic pages when we have to use this stuff for now, so that's always an option until it's available.
Fortunately, Today we have some interesting option to cover the use cases you mention:
(1) You can already clone an existing modern webpart to create another one, so technically you have the "templating" option there
(2) Site scripts and site desings are evolving really fast so I expect also the ability to include your customized modern pages there in the future
(3) Avility to connect modern WebParts, aka SPFx Dynamic Data, is coming

Unfortunately, cloning a web part wouldn't really achieve the same result. What I'm talking about are entire pages of web parts connected to one another and/or to filters (particularly query string filters). Here's a brief look at one such site: https://youtu.be/f5A7Cf1IrRI

 

Maybe SPFx is going to be the way to do some of this going forward, but if so, that's a big ask from MS. I mean, I'm no coder, but I could create really useful experiences and sites using OOTB web parts. If I now need to learn how to write code and create web parts from scratch to achieve the same result, that's a step backward.

This has been added to the Roadmap as coming in 2019.

wp.PNG

Hello everyone, great conversation topic!

 

Let me try to provide some clarity on this topic. First, my name is Luca Bandinelli and the PM owner of the SharePoint Framework under the SharePoint Engineering Team.

 

As part of SharePoint Framework (SPFx) we released a new feature called Dynamic Data which basically brings the same capability of part to part communications (and much more!) to the Modern SharePoint User Experience.

This feature, initially released in version 1.5 of SPFx framework, is currently marked as "Developer Preview"; this means you can use it for testing and even for prototyping but it's not recommended to be used in production environments as some APIs can change in behaviors before we release the feature for production. And backward compatibility with Preview features is not guaranteed.

We are however working very hard to make it production ready sometime this calendar year.

 

in the meantime, here are some pointers to start getting familiar with Dynamic Data:

Last, if you are planning to come to Microsoft Ignite, we will have sessions where we will present Dynamic Data capabilities both for end users and developers.

 

Thanks,

Luca 

Beyond the good insights called out in this thread, I wanted to add that we did announce the support of webpart-to-webpart connections coming to SharePoint in Office 365, sometimes referred to as "dynamic data connections." You can review my blog that has a disclosure section about what we shared at MS Ignite 2018: "SharePoint powers teamwork in Office 365 – Ignite 2018 announcements": https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-SharePoint-Blog/SharePoint-powers-teamwork-in-Offic... (scroll to the "Enhancements to powerful SharePoint web parts and pages" section). Cheers, Mark.

Hello,

 

is there an update on the availability of this feature? In the SharePoint Roadmap the feature is marked as launched since December 2018. Unfortuniatly I cannot find this feature / active it in our SharePoint environment. 

 

Kind regards,

 

Jan

AS part of SPFx 1.7 we released Dynamic Data for General Availability. Details are reported here: SharePoint Framework v1.7 release notes

 

However it's important to mention that this doesn't mean that now all web parts we ship in the product (we refer those as "first party web parts" as they are developed by Microsoft) automatically expose that capability. 

1.7 release of SharePoint framework it's a developer release: it means that developers can create web parts that take advantages of Dynamic Data capabilities.

Web parts developed by Microsoft will start, where make sense, to surface ability to consume or produce signals for Dynamic Data; and that will happen over time.

 

 

Hope this helps,

Luca Bandinelli

This is confusing. Can we simply know when out of the box list web parts will be able to connect?

@Daryl Vogan wrote:
This is confusing. Can we simply know when out of the box list web parts will be able to connect?

Basically, if you're a developer, the nuts & bolts to create your own connected web parts are there in SharePoint Framework now. For us non-developers, Microsoft will eventually roll out their own "connectable" web parts. I would hope they'd start with the Library and List web parts, but since those officially came out of Preview relatively recently, I don't think that will be the case. 




Basically, if you're a developer, the nuts & bolts to create your own connected web parts are there in SharePoint Framework now. For us non-developers, Microsoft will eventually roll out their own "connectable" web parts. I would hope they'd start with the Library and List web parts, but since those officially came out of Preview relatively recently, I don't think that will be the case. 

@Mark Kashman any update on first party webpart connection availability? I need the embed one and it is not yet available in my dev tenant. Looked at the blog and neither the "roadmap pitstop" nor the "december update" articles mention the webparts.

 

Thanks

This is welcome news and looking forward to it. Specifically looking forward to more development and customised features which support Visio integration with SharePoint Online. We are looking to embed visio diagrams on modern pages and connect the data in the diagram to other lists and libraries contained within our site..for example a page which contains the file viewer web part of a visio process flow diagram, and a web part showing a document library or highlighted content and as the user clicks on the shapes within the visio web part the document library or highlighted content will filter to only display the documents which correspond to that step (shape) of the process. This would be acheived by shape data values matching the values contained in the document library column. So basically modern versions of send shape data to, highlight. We need more out of the box  customisation options in the file viewer web part edit settings for visio files to select default zoom, default tab, lock pan and zoom etc - would be great to see this type of functionality in the future.

I totally agree with Daryl. This is an inportant webpart to have. The only way to filter items in seval webparts on one single page. It gives great overview! Please release! :)

I've tested the new feature and the experience is once again very underwhelming.

 

So basically you can:

  • Select a list item and see its properties (in a vertical lay-out, all fields under each other and yes another scrollbar inside your page).
  • Select a document and see the file preview.

So no option to select a list item and (via a shared property) show all related documents in a library (you could do this in 10 years ago in classic pages). 

 

Apart from this, I noticed you can use 'Page Environment' as a refiner source and select 'Query String'. I tried adding a few query strings but nothing seemed to work. Anyone an idea if / how this works?

@Jeroen Lammens I have the same questions. Tried to use the query string parameter but I just don't understand how it is supposed to work.

 

See https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint/SharePoint-Embed-Web-Part-Syntax/m-p/388388#M28329

Hi @Mark Kashman and @Luca Bandinelli 

 

Can you provide an update on that? If not please try to find someone who could. Question still unanswered after many months.

 

I need to know if it will be possible to connect the embed web part to a URL parameter. And, if so when Soon :-),

This year :| ,

Someday / Top of mind :(

 


@Jeroen Lammens wrote:

I've tested the new feature and the experience is once again very underwhelming.

 

So basically you can:

  • Select a list item and see its properties (in a vertical lay-out, all fields under each other and yes another scrollbar inside your page).
  • Select a document and see the file preview.

@Jeroen Lammens I completely agree.  The added functionality is neat because its new and does something, but it's underwhelming at best.  The ability to connect lists and have one list filtered by the selections in a related list is huge.  I am surprised that this hasn't come out yet.  Can anyone give an update or possible solutions that don't entail building it from scratch from spfx?