Manually overriding document expiration date

Some time back I implemented interesting functionality which is the topic of this article.
Requirements:

The client wanted to have override feature where users can override expiration date and it should be configurable meaning user can specify number of days/months/years to extend current expiry date. Fortunately we had implemented Custom Expiration formula to calculate expiry date which helps in designing solution for this requirement.
Assumptions:

You are using Custom Expiration formula to calculate expiry date.
Solution:

I took following steps to implement the solution.

• Create new hidden field "Ignore" of type Number in document library.
• Create new .aspx page and code behind files. You will find several articles on internet on how to create new application page.

Part of aspx file where all controls are defined.

Part of button click event handler

• Create feature xml file to provision .aspx file and add "Override Expiration" menu to ECB (Editor Control Block) of list item.

ApplicationPageNavigation.xml (elements xml file)

Feature.xml

• Modify custom expiration formula code to return already set expiration date when "Ignore" field contains value "1".
• Build solution (WSP) and deploy to your SharePoint farm.

When user selects "Override Expiration" menu item, he/she is presented with screen where user enters number of days/months/years to extend expiration date. After hitting "Ok" button, the button event code fire and extend current expiration date and redirect user back to list view.

Here are screenshots of final product.

List item with "Override Expiration" ECB menu item and current "Expiration Date"

Screen to capture user inputs (expiry date to extend by 3 days)

List item with updated "Expiration Date"

Attachment:
OverrideExpirationECBMenu.zip

Note the project I have attached is actually taken from proof of concept, so there are no validation and exception handling implemented.

Leave comments if you have any question.

Hope this helps.
-Javed

Validating document approval and sending email notification

Today I was working on a requirement to validate document approval (we are using OOTB document approval feature) based of some external business rules.

Requirement:

If business validation fails, I have to cancel document Approval process and if validation succeeds then I have to generate email notifying team with links to approved document.

Solution:

My first option was to use Workflow using Visual Studio (I have to re-use the functionality for many other document libraries), but soon found out it's not possible to retrieve before and after values inside Workflow and to cancel list item update. Please let me know if you think otherwise. The other option was to use Event Receiver which I followed. I override synchronous ItemUpdating event and again struggled to retrieve after "Approval Status" value. After couple of hours of debugging, I found key named vti_doclibmodstat in AfterProperites collection containing integer values 0, 1 or 2 which is nothing but Approved, Rejected or Pending statuses. So here is the complete code to retrieve before and after "Approval Status" inside event handler:

public override void ItemUpdating(SPItemEventProperties properties)
{
base.ItemUpdating(properties);

SPModerationStatusType beforeStatus = properties.ListItem.ModerationInformation.Status;

SPModerationStatusType afterStatus = 
(SPModerationStatusType)Int32.Parse(properties.AfterProperties["vti_doclibmodstat"].ToString());

if ((beforeStatus != afterStatus) && 
(afterStatus == SPModerationStatusType.Approved))

{

if (Validate(properties) == false)

{

properties.Cancel = true;

properties.ErrorMessage = "";

}

else

{

SendEmail(properties);

}

}

}

And now I can validate document approval process, cancel approval process and send email notifications.

Hope this helps.
-Javed