Two SharePoint lists in DataView - Linked Sources with SharePoint Designer

In the following, I describe how to show content from two lists in the same view. Here is a simple list of items on a SharePoint page. The items are residing in two different lists:



Lists are called, Wave 1 and Wave 2.
Wave 1 list is a custom list with Title column:



Wave 2 is as simple as Wave 1:



I opened the site with lists in SharePoint Designer, and I chose "Data Sources". Then I clicked on "Linked Data Source":



I selected Wave 1 and Wave 2 in the Wizard:



And I chose the "Merge" option, so I can sort and filter the content as it was one single list:



I have a data source now, and I need a page to do a web part that shows the content.
I clicked on "Site Pages" and I added new "Web Part Page"



Yes, it's called Untitled_4.aspx :o)

Then I clicked on "Insert" tab in the ribbon, and selected DataView button. The last item in dropdown is my "Linked Data Source" called "New Data Source":



I clicked on "Add/Remove Columns":



I removed "Modified" column:



I found the "row view" in code for DataView web part. "Row view" contains XSLT that is used to display items:



I changed:
<xsl:value-of select="@Title" /></td><td class="ms-vb">
<xsl:value-of select="@Editor" />
to:
<xsl:value-of select="@Title" /></td><td class="ms-vb">
<xsl:value-of select="@Editor" disable-output-escaping="yes" />

When "disable-output-escaping" is set to "yes" the column is displayed as HTML and not as text. @Editor column contains HTML that renders as Lync presence and Editor's name that is link to MySite.

Then I clicked on "Sort & Group" in the ribbon and sorted the view by Title:



I clicked on "Web Part" in the ribbon and I selected "To Site Gallery":



DataView with two lists as data source is saved as web part on the site now.
I can go and open a page and add a web part. When I edit a web part, I can make changes to the XSLT view:



And the web part looks like this:






This is only SharePoint. We are not in business of saving lives. Cool and other options in Pay Now are here if you think this blog post helped you.