Pop Quiz, Bamboo Nation -- Announcing the SharePoint List Rollup Web Part, release 4.0

Remember the movie "Speed"? I always wondered how they came up with the premise. I figure it was probably two Hollywood types, driving somewhere on their way to get lunch, who saw a bus drive by too quickly or something.

PRODUCER : I wonder why he was going so fast?

WRITER : Hmm... maybe he HAS to go that fast.

PRODUCER : I'm sorry? I don't follow you.

WRITER : Well, maybe there's a guy on the bus with a gun, and he's waving it around yelling "DON'T STOP!!!"

PRODUCER : Why would he do that?

WRITER : Okay, fine, it's not him. Maybe it's a BOMB on the bus.

PRODUCER : And the bomb goes off if the bus doesn't go fast?

WRITER Exactly.

PRODUCER : That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

WRITER : You're probably right.

PRODUCER : It'd totally have to be on a boat.

.... and that's how ridiculous movies get made. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, that's right -- if you recall, PRIOR to the whole bus ordeal, the two main characters have this ongoing game where they give each other "pop quizzes". Eventually, the villain finds out about this (I forget how, but bear with me, we're almost through with this), and he ends up pulling a gun on Keanu Reeves -- who doesn't "know kung fu" yet, as it was still 1994 -- and threatening him to answer a "pop quiz" of his own. Keanu gives him some vaguely intense answer, everyone is covered in sweat, there are several explosions, and then eventually a subway car flies out of the ground as the movie ends. At least that's how I remember it.

Well, Bamboo Nation, here's your pop quiz. You get to have one, single SharePoint Web Part from Bamboo -- what do you choose? WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE????

Um... how about List Rollup? Granted, you should probably choose the Bamboo Ultimate Suite, since it includes List Rollup and a whole bunch of other crazy stuff, but in this hypothetical scenario, that's kind of like telling the genie that just popped out of the bottle that you "wish for more wishes". At some point, you're just being difficult. Besides, I said "Web Part", didn't I?

So argue what you will -- I'm sticking with List Rollup. After all, no matter what you do with your SharePoint portal, or how it's set up, you probably spend most of your time working with SharePoint lists -- and if you're working with SharePoint lists, it's only going to be a matter of time before you want to aggregate their contents into a single data view, whether it's just to analyze, or to feed into other SharePoint Web Parts. That's exactly what List Rollup does. Even better, our List Rollup isn't some flash-in-the-pan concept; it's tried and true, and in fact, graduates to version 4.0 with the latest release (now available on our online storefront, of course). The latest and greatest List Rollup fixes a few pesky bugs, and better yet, adds two incredibly useful, brand-new features to its already impressive capabilities.

CAML Filters for Dummies

Any content rollup Web Part has to negotiate a delicate balance between too little data, and too much. On the one hand, there's no point in aggregating if you don't get everything you need -- on the other, too much data is overwhelming, and usually pretty taxing on your server. To help combat the latter problem, List Rollup supports CAML query filtering, which eliminates extraneous data from your rollup, making the resulting data view leaner, meaner, and of course, faster. The only problem was that you needed to know how to write a CAML filter, something most of us don't have much experience with.

Problem solved -- in version 4.0, List Rollup includes the common man/woman's answer to CAML filters; the Criteria Builder, which takes in your basic logic statements, and spits out fully functional CAML queries directly into your List Rollup configuration screen.

With the Criteria Builder, there's no reason for you (or your server) to wade through hundreds of irrelevant list items you're not interested in aggregating; simply create a filter to weed them out with a few clicks of the mouse. You'll have a faster, more effective data view, and the only CAML you'll need to be familiar with is the one Yosemite Sam rides.

Distribute Your Rollups

If you've ever used the List Rollup Web Part before, you know that it's not limited to aggregating data from a single site. And if you can gather list data from across the site collection into a single source, wouldn't you want that single source to be available to the entire site collection? Now, List Rollup makes it easy to add any or all of your data views to the Web Part Gallery for the entire site collection -- just click the "Export Data" button, choose which data views to deploy, and just like that, they're added to the Gallery. It couldn't be easier to share that honed, efficient rollup you built with other sites in your site collection (instead of building it again).

So that's List Rollup 4.0 -- it lets you make better, more efficient data views, and quickly distribute them across your site collection. Head over to the storefront to download a free 15-day trial download, and see for yourself.

I promise, it won't make anything explode.