Filtered/Connected Web Parts In Modern SharePoint Pages

In this blog, you will learn how to use Filtered and Connected Webparts in Modern SharePoint Pages.

For SharePoint power users, the Filtered/Connected Web parts is a very popular feature. While this feature has been in use in Classic SharePoint sites for a long time, it has been a more recent introduction to Modern SharePoint Pages. While the features in Modern SharePoint Pages may not be the same as in Classic SharePoint, I like the fact that the current web parts cover the most relevant functionalities used in Classic SharePoint sites.

 

Following are the filtered/connected web parts that are available in Modern SharePoint Pages as of today. Further in this article, I will explain how to use each one of them.

1. List Properties Web part: Displays properties of selected List Item
2. File Viewer Web part: Displays file content of selected document in Library
3. Embed Web part: Displays any type of content including Images and Videos
4. Filter Web part based on another list or library

List Properties Web Part

 

This web part is useful when users have a list with too many columns and you cannot display the relevant columns in a view without horizontal scrolling. List Properties web part allows users to configure the columns they want to display in a web part when a particular item is selected in List View web part. Here’s how to configure it,

1. Add a “List Web part” (select a List from the site) and “List Properties Web part” on the page
2. On the “List Properties Web part”, click “Connect”, it will open the properties pane of the web part
3. In the properties pane, click on the ellipsis (…), and click “Connect to source”
4. If you have more than one “List Web part” on the page, then select appropriate web part/list and choose the columns you want to display in the “List Properties Web part”
5. You can also select if properties should be editable or read-only in the web part
6. Save the page and test the webpart by selecting any item from “List Web part”

File Viewer Web Part

 

This web part allows users see the content of a selected file without a need to open each file in browser/desktop app. Here’s how to configure it,

1. Add a “Document Library Web part” (select a Document Library from the site) and “File Viewer Web part” on the page
2. On the “File Viewer Web part”, click “Edit”, it will open the properties pane of the web part
3. In the properties pane, click on the ellipsis (…), and click “Connect to source”
4. If you have more than one “Document Library Web part” on the page, then select appropriate web part/document library
5. Save the page and test the webpart by selecting any document from “Document Library Web part”

File Viewer Web part supports various file types apart from Office Documents like Images, Text and PDF.

 

Embed Web Part

 

This web part allows users to display dynamic content using links or embed code that can use variables. Below are a couple examples on how to configure it for Images; similar logic can be applied for other content too like YouTube Videos.

1. Create a List, add a Hyperlink Column to it that will contain the Image URL
2. Add a “List Web part” (select the List with Image URL’s) and “Embed Web part” on the page
3. On the “Embed Web part”, click “Edit”, it will open the properties pane of the web part
4. In the properties pane, click on the ellipsis (…), and click “Connect to source”, then select appropriate web part/list
5. Under “Web site address or embed code”, add the embed code. In this example, the embed code is,
   
   <iframe width="693" height="390" src="[$Image URL]" frameborder="0" ></iframe> where [$Image URL] is the variable that represents the column name for the Image URLs.

6. Save the page and test the web part by selecting any item from “List Web part”. Respective Image will be displayed in Embed Web part

Filter Web Part based on another list or library

 

This is the same feature as Connected Web parts in Classic SharePoint Sites. In Modern Experience, we enable the “Dynamic Filtering” on the secondary web part and provide the details on the filter. Here is how to do this,

1. In order to have the dynamic filtering capabilities between two lists, there should be some kind of parent-child relationship that will allow the filters to work
2. Add a “List” or “Document Library” web part to the page that will act as the parent control
3. Add another “List” or “Document Library” web part to the page. This will be the child control.
4. On the second web part, click “Edit”
5. In the properties pane, enable the “Dynamic Filtering” toggle and provide the column to filter on
6. Select the Parent List and the column to filter by
7. Click on "Apply"
8. Save the page and test the web part by selecting any item/document from parent “List Web part”. Items in the second “List Web part” will be filtered accordingly.

These are some very useful web parts that makes the user experience and content rendering very friendly for end users. If you have not explored these web part features yet, then I encourage you to try them out now in Modern SharePoint Pages.