How do you connect a Calendar List to a Project Tasks list using Web Part Connections?

Question

I created a Calendar List and a Project Tasks list. Then I added a lookup from the Tasks list to the Calendar list. However, when I try to connect the two with the related field visible on both List View WebParts, the connection is greyed out. How do I make this work?

There is very little information available on connecting WebParts on a web part page. This seems to be too advanced a topic for most of the end user resources. On the other hand, it's not a developer or IT Pro topic either.

The Administrator's Companion and the "SharePoint 2007 User's Guide" by Seth Bates both have one page on the topic. Office Online, Connect Web Parts, is not complete.

Update 1/29/2010: Rereading my question and Brian's answer, I've given him the credit. This question really has two parts and he did help me get my web part connection working. The best reference for WebPart Connections is still open, though I'll copy it into a new question.

Answer 1

If you try to connect a calendar view with anything it will fail. That view doesn't support connections. Same with Gantt chart. Now the calendar is just a specialized view of some Event content type. So if you can live with standard list view it will connect to tasks list. Just make sure all columns you want to connect against are visible in the view for both web parts and the data types match. I think you can have implicit impedance match too for example a number field will connect with a text field. I agree it's very hard to find info on web part connections. I have many battle scars working on these things.

Answer 2

If you think that it is hard from an end user's standpoint, try doing development with it! I think they have simplified it some over the 2003 version.

The one thing that you have to keep in mind is that the data being passed must be defined. There are different "formats" for this contract; Row, Cell, or Parameters. The provider and the consumer must be able to agree on the format, which is why you are likely having problems. A web part that is otherwise connectible may not show as being available for connections if there are no web parts on the page that can talk to it.

The Office Online article is the best article I've found, but I haven't looked for any other content since the initial migration to MOSS.

I'm not sure why the Calendar list couldn't be connected to the Project Task list. In the past I've done a lot with connecting Parent and Child records with both lists shown on the page. I've also wired up some custom web parts to help with additional filtering and creation of new list items via a standard template.

All of the standard list views, the filter web parts, DataViews, etc should fully support connections.

Hopefully that helps at least a little.

Answer 3

Tom,

Laura Rogers has done a lot of work with connecting web parts. I don't think she has much info on her blog, but she may be able to give you some assistance if you ping her. @wonderlaura on twitter.

Answer 4

When the calendar is the leading webpart and the task list is the child webpart, please edit the Task webpart.

Expand the "Miscellaneous" area and make sure "Server-Render" is checked. This will connect both webparts as you would expect.

Please note: You will lose some functionality. Instant completing a task will no longer work.