Active Display™ web parts do everything that standard roll-ups do, and more. Just like standard roll-ups, they aggregate items from selected lists that meet your criteria, and display them in a single view that can be ordered by one or more columns. The results can be exported to Microsoft Excel, and you can also control the number of items to show in a list and use Next and Back buttons.
In addition to the abilities of standard roll-ups, Active Displays can be configured to present any number of actions that can be executed against the list items shown in the display. They also feature a number of enhancements that are not available in standard roll-ups, such as dynamic grouping on multiple columns, the ability to group by site, list, and/or folder, additional sorting capabilities, and support for Central Configuration.
Active Displays allow you to not just see information, but also enter and act upon that information from anywhere in your environment.
As of the Fall 2007 release, Active Displays also include a Columns tab, which can be used to easily select, modify, and rearrange the columns included in an Active Display, without having to go back and forth to the Roll-Up Wizard. It also provides a simple method to select the columns that can be used for sorting, filtering, grouping, and searching. The Fall 2007 release also introduces the ability to total columns without using a custom display.
NOTE 1: Active Displays and the Actions Wizard are closely tied. For information about what can and cannot be done with each type of action, as well as portability issues, please reference the online help for the Actions Wizard.
NOTE 2: Prior to SharePoint 2007, users could drill down to any item in an Active Display for viewing or editing purposes, and then return back to the Active Display. As of SharePoint 2007, if a user views or edits an Active Display item that is located in a different site collection, the user will be returned to that item’s list when finished viewing or editing, rather than the Active Display. As a result, CorasWorks recommends that you configure the Active Display to open items in a new window. (Set the Target Window property to “_blank” on the Other tab of the administration interface.) This is not necessary if all items are in the same site collection.
Last Modified: July 08