In SharePoint 2007 we had a problem when we wanted to create calculated columns using either the [Today] or [Me], respectively giving the current date and the current user. If you search on the web, a lot of pages are describing and talking about the workaround. The workaround is to create a “Today” or a “Me” column with the standard and default settings, writing the formula and then, finally, to delete the created columns.

I hoped that in SharePoint 2010, this was fixed. But when I created my first calculated column based on dates, here is what I got :

Exactly the same error we have in SharePoint 2007.

And…..exactly the same workaround. So, is it not considered as a bug or a problem for Microsoft ? Sure, there is a workaround, but it is quite annoying to create columns just to delete them right after. And, last but not least, when the formula has to be udpated, ensure that these columns are present otherwise, it will be impossible to save the new formula.

UPDATE

I got a correction from Ryan (see comment below) and indeed, the what-was-called-so-far-a-workaround in many pages on the web (and here also 🙂 ) is in fact not a viable solution. In fact, the column using this “trick” will only be updated and calculated when the item is updated. To see the confirmation of this, create a column with a formula like this : =IF([StartDate]>[Today],”Future”,”Started”) with StartDate being a manually-set date and wait for that StartDate to be reached. If the item is not updated, the column will keep the “Future” label.

Anyway, the fact that it is not possible to have such functionality in SP2010 is a bit pity.

Thanks to Ryan for the correction