Lookup Column in sharepoint with free text (No dropdown)

Question

I have a free text of employee number in task form (Linked to form), when employee number is entered, I want to auto populate name and employee department. I can have source data in excel or separate list. I don't have access to SharePoint designer or InfoPath. This is to ensure employee is not entering his employee code wrongly. If he enters it wrongly, that will affect my reports in Power BI.

Answer 1

The following example for your reference.

1.Create a custom list "Employee" to store the employee data.

2.Modify the default "Title" field name to "Number" and add two text field "Name", "Department".

3.Add the code below into script editor web part in task form page.

<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.12.4.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function () {
    var empNumField="employee number";
    var empNameField="employee name";
    var EmpDepField="employee department";
    $(".ms-standardheader:contains('"+empNumField+"')").closest("tr").find("input").focusout(function(){
        $.ajax({
            url:  _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl + "/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Employee')/items?$filter=Title eq '"+$(this).val()+"'",                              
            type: "GET",
            headers: {"Accept": "application/json;odata=verbose" },
            success: function(data){
                if(data.d.results.length>0){
                    var employee=data.d.results[0];
                    $(".ms-standardheader:contains('"+empNameField+"')").closest("tr").find("input").val(employee.Name);
                    $(".ms-standardheader:contains('"+EmpDepField+"')").closest("tr").find("input").val(employee.Department);
                }

            },
            error: function () {
                //console.log("Failed to get details");
        }
        });
    });
});
</script>

4.Enter the employee number in the "employee number" field, after the field focus out, the "employee name" and "employee department" fields will auto populated.

If you don't want to make the "employee name" and "employee department" fields read only, you can modify the code as below.

<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.12.4.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function () {
    var empNumField="employee number";
    var empNameField="employee name";
    var empDepField="employee department";
    $(".ms-standardheader:contains('"+empNameField+"')").closest("tr").find("input").prop("disabled", true);
    $(".ms-standardheader:contains('"+empDepField+"')").closest("tr").find("input").prop("disabled", true);
    $(".ms-standardheader:contains('"+empNumField+"')").closest("tr").find("input").focusout(function(){
        $.ajax({
            url:  _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl + "/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Employee')/items?$filter=Title eq '"+$(this).val()+"'",                              
            type: "GET",
            headers: {"Accept": "application/json;odata=verbose" },
            success: function(data){
                if(data.d.results.length>0){
                    var employee=data.d.results[0];
                    $(".ms-standardheader:contains('"+empNameField+"')").closest("tr").find("input:disabled").val(employee.Name);
                    $(".ms-standardheader:contains('"+empDepField+"')").closest("tr").find("input:disabled").val(employee.Department);
                }else{
                   alert("Please check the employee number.");
                }

            },
            error: function () {
                //console.log("Failed to get details");
        }
        });
    });
});
</script>

Answer 2

If you're in SharePoint online, perhaps you have access to PowerApps? This would be a fairly straightforward PowerApps project. You would simply need to add a data connection for the other list, and then use PowerApps' Lookup function to retrieve the desired fields from the list, based on the value of the textbox.

Otherwise, if you're in a classic site, you could add a content editor or script editor web part to the page and write javascript to retrieve and set those values.