Querying sharepoint data

Question

I have a requirement to retrieve data from share point (I guess it is 2010, but will check with admin if relevant) and generate an excel report/chart. Say we have a bug tracking system in share point. Currently, I could create a view and see some statistics, but I need to plot a graph to see historically (every week) how the number of bugs changed. For example,

• get the number of bugs filed in a specific week
• do some grouping based on type/severity
• based on classification get number of bugs solved that week etc.

If I can get the numbers based on date range, I may use excel to plot the graph.

After some reading, SharePoint object model come close to what I used to work with (Oracle DB). I understand it may be entirely different from tradition db and querying.

Please help me with

1. What is the best method to approach this?
2. Is there a good book/resource.

Thanks a lot,
bsr

Answer 1

The easiest apprach would be to LINK to the sharepoint lists using Access 2007 or 2010 and then export the data to Excel for further processling. Of course, you could also write a program that uses CAML query to access the data. Your requirement sound straightforward, unless you need to automate the reporting process, the simplest approach would be to access the lists via an access database.

You could also create a web service via REST that pulls the data directly into Excel.

Answer 2

SharePoint has it's own query language: CAML query, and in theory that could be used to retrieve the list you seek.

And you should be prepared for "some" trial and error. Tools I used:

• http://www.u2u.be/res/tools/camlquerybuilder.aspx
• http://spud.codeplex.com/

Answer 3

what I understand from this question is that you have the need to put the SharePoint data to an excel file and this from within the SharePoint site? So it looks to me that you could just create a simple SharePoint web part that consists of one button "generate excel file". So when the user clicks on the button you would just query your SPList object(SharePoint object model) and you would get all the necessary data from the list (SPListItems).

This is the way that I would take. Mind you that this is offcourse custom SharePoint Development (.NET c#). There are lots of books or blogs that described how to create your own web part in SharePoint.