How to Create an Employee Birthday Calendar Step-By-Step

1 Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 1 - Visit How to Create an Employee Birthday Calendar Step-By-Step Did you know one of the most common requests for an Intranet is an Employee Birthday Calendar ? Many folks have created custom code solutions in the form of either web parts or Apps to be installed but they don t have to. To show you how SharePoint can be powerful with only out of the box tools, we have put together a set of steps and tasks you will be able to use to Create a customized Birthday Calendar for your organization. At you will find more information about the kinds of support we can offer. Whether it s our books or our content that helps everyone in an organization, we ve got the tools you need to be successful with SharePoint. Another great way to connect with us is to sign up for the monthly newsletter or feel free to reach out to us and see how we can help through our email inbox.

2 Overview Creating an Employee Birthday Calendar consists of three basic steps: The List: Creating and customizing a list to hold all the birthdays. Workflow: The workflow that will be used to automatically increment the next Birthday for the Employee so that we can use the out-of-the-box list views to show the Employee s Birthday . Document Retention Settings: The document retention settings will be used to trigger the workflow anytime that the Employee s next Birthday is in the past. This mechanism will consistently update the Employee s next Birthday . If this seems like a lot for a simple Birthday Calendar it is. SharePoint supports recurring events so you can technically Create a Birthday as a recurring event except that this breaks when you get more than about 100 employees.

3 SharePoint can t process the number of recurring appointments in the Calendar and throws an error. In addition, you probably don t want to share the year of birth since this is sensitive information particularly to those of us who are aging. So let s use the out of the box tools in SharePoint to Create an Employee Birthday Calendar . Create a Custom List Steps: 1. Start Internet Explorer and type the URL for your organization s SharePoint server. The Start page will open. If you want this custom list to appear in one of your subsites, navigate to that site. 2. Click the Settings menu gear icon. The Settings menu will appear. 3. Click Add an App. The Apps page will appear. Exception: If you don t see the option to Add an App, you do not have specific permissions to perform that function.

4 Check the permissions settings to ensure you have the appropriate access rights. Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 2 - Visit Figure 1: The Your Apps Page 4. Click the Custom List icon. The Adding Custom List dialog box will open. Figure 2: The Adding Custom List Dialog Box 5. Click Advanced Options. The Site Contents New page will open. 6. In the Name field enter a title for the new list. This is used to identify the list throughout SharePoint. (Suggestion: Employee Birthday Calendar ) Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 3 - Visit Figure 3: The Site Contents New Page 7. In the Description field, enter any notes about the new list. This appears as an information icon next to the list name when your list is open in SharePoint. 8. Click Create .

5 The new list will be created. Figure 1: The New List Now that our Custom List has been created, next we are going to customize the columns to manage the data needed to track the Employee s birthdays. We will use the columns to enter the data needed which is limited to the Employee s name, their birth month (Month), their birth day (Day), and their next Birthday (NextBDay). Customize the Columns of the List Steps: 1. Click the List tab. The List ribbon will open. Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 4 - Visit Figure 2: The List Tools Ribbon 2. Click List Settings. The List Settings dialog box will open. 3. In the Column section, click on the Title Column. Change the Column name: Employee Name. 4. Specify Require that this column contains information: as Yes.

6 Specify Enforce unique values: as No. 5. Leave Default value: as Text. Figure 3: The Create Column Dialog Box 6. Click OK. 7. Click on Employee Birthday Calendar . Click the List tab. The List ribbon will open. Click Create Column. The Create Column dialog box will open. 8. In the Column name field, enter a name for the new column: Month. (The person s birth month) Specify the type of information in this list column as Number with no decimal. Specify Require that this column contains information: as Yes. Specify Enforce unique values: as Yes. Specify Min: as 1. Specify Max: as 12. Specify Number of decimal places: as 0. Leave Default value: as Number. Click OK. 9. Click the List tab. The List ribbon will open. Click Create Column.

7 The Create Column dialog box will open. 10. In the Column name field, enter a name for the new column: Day. (The date of the person s birth) Specify the type of information in this list column as Number with no decimal. Specify Require that this column contains Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 5 - Visit information: as Yes. Specify Enforce unique values: as Yes. Specify Min: as 1. Specify Max: as 31. Specify Number of decimal places: as 0. Leave Default value: as Number. Click OK. 11. Click the List tab. The List ribbon will open. Click Create Column. The Create Column dialog box will open. 12. In the Column name field, enter a name for the new column: NextBDay. Specify the type of information in this list column as Date. Specify Require that this column contains information: as Yes.

8 Specify Enforce unique values: as No. Leave Default value: as Text. Click OK. Now that our list is created and customized, we need to Create the workflow. The workflow should run anytime that an item is created. Let s begin creating our Employee Birthday Calendar workflow. Create a Workflow for the Employee Birthday Calendar in SharePoint Designer Steps: 1. Open SharePoint Designer. Open the site where the List was created. Select Workflows (in the left pane). 2. Select drop down for List Workflow. Select the Employee Birthday Calendar previously created. Figure 1: SharePoint Designer Workflow 3. In the dialog that appears, enter a name for the workflow (Next Birthday ). Set the Platform Type to: SharePoint 2010 Workflow. Click OK. Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 6 - Visit Figure 2: Create List Workflow In the designer we re going to Create a workflow that looks something like the following when we re done: Figure 3: Employee Birthday Workflow 4.

9 Create first Set Variable action by starting to type Set Workflow Variable and press Enter. Click on the Workflow Variable highlighted text. Select Create a new variable from the drop down. Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 7 - Visit Figure 4: Create a new variable 5. Name: as Today. Type: as String. Click OK. Figure 5: Edit Variable 6. Click on Value and then Fx button. Figure 6: Define workflow lookup 7. Select Data Source: as Workflow Context. Field from source: as Date and Time Started. Return field as: as Short Date. Click OK. Figure 7: Lookup for String 8. Begin typing in the step 1 box: Extract Substring from End of String when it appears press Enter. Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 8 - Visit Figure 8: Create a date 9. Click the 0 (zero) characters and change it to 4 (since years are 4 digits).

10 10. Set the output variable by selecting Create a new variable. Name: as Year. Type: as String. Click OK. 11. Select the String and click the Fx button. Data source: as Workflow Variable and Parameters, the Field from source as Variable: Today, and the Return field As String. Click OK. Figure 9: Lookup for String 12. In step 1: start typing Set Workflow Variable and press enter. Click on Workflow Variable. Select Create a new variable. Name: CurYearBDayStr. Type: as String. Click OK. Figure 10: Create New Variable - CurYearBDayStr 13. Click Value and click the .. (Ellipsis button, not the Fx button). Copyright 2016 AvailTek LLC - 9 - Visit Figure 11: Blank String Builder 14. Click the Add or Change Lookup button in the lower left.