Within a SharePoint list or library, you have the ability to add columns that are of type Multiple Lines of Text. Within the settings of this column, you are able to select whether or not you’d like to Append Changes to Existing Text. If you’re unsure, this setting is located in the Additional Column Settings section when you create or edit an existing column.
Now if you select Yes, and click OK, unless you have versioning turned on for the list, you will receive the following error:
You must first turn on versioning in this list before adding or creating columns which append changes to existing text.
So it seems as though versioning is an absolute requirement for this setting. I did a bit of testing and wanted to record my observations:
- If you turn on versioning for the list and set this setting to Yes, all that SharePoint will really do is display the ‘updates’ to this field in the edit and display forms. There’s nothing else funky going on behind the scenes. Hence the need to have versioning turned on first; all updates are actually managed through versioning. This setting just lets us see into the versions within the edit and display forms.
- Changing this setting back to No after you have already made several updates will NOT result in a loss of data. It will simply mean that SharePoint no longer displays the ‘updates’ in your edit and display forms. To verify if this is true, simply check the versions of the item and you’ll see that your edits for that particular field are still there. This is really easy to test and I encourage you to do so.
If you’ve selected Yes, the key thing to note is that SharePoint will store blank entries in the Version History of that item. If this option is set to No, SharePoint will still record any updates to the field as versions of the item, but it won’t store any blank entries. This is an important consideration if you’re building any custom forms or views for this data and are worried about blank entries showing up.
If you’re a developer, you may want to consider not using this option and if you need to show the ‘updates’ to a column in your edit and display forms, then write it yourself by looping through the versions of a listitem (a topic for another blog post).
If you’re working in SharePoint Designer and you’re wondering why your Multiple Lines of Text column is not displaying correctly, try replacing:
1 | <xsl:value-of select="@Updates" disable-output-escaping="yes" /> |
with
1 | <SharePoint:AppendOnlyHistory runat="server" FieldName="Updates" ControlMode="Display" ItemId="{@ID}"/> |
I just want to point out that attempting to set the DisplaySize property had no affect. If anyone was able to successfully configure this, please let me know.
That’s really all I wanted to say on this topic. I just wanted to clarify a few things I had noticed. I hope that makes sense to everyone. Ping me if you have any questions.
