Finding a Task’s Status Using GetListItems and SPServices in SharePoint 2013

I get interesting questions all this time. This one came from a client who was trying to use GetListItems with SPServices in SharePoint .

Hey Marc, I’m trying to do a GetListItems operation on tasks list and I’m having trouble with the “Task Status” column. This is SP2013.

var thisTaskStatus = $.trim($(this).attr("Status"));
var thisTaskStatus = $.trim($(this).attr("ows_Status"));
var thisTaskStatus = $.trim($(this).attr("ows_Task_x0020_Status"));

None of the above work and I went into the edit column settings of the task list and clicked on the status column and it says the field name is “Status”. When I look at the XML returned using Firebug, a lot of other fields show up like Title, Due Date, Created By, etc. but I don’t see the status column showing up at all in the responseXML.

Many of the out of the box columns have rather obscure StaticNames. In a Tasks list, the column which has the “Status” DisplayName has a StaticName of “Status” as well, so that’s pretty simple. Here’s the field definition, which I grabbed by calling GetList on my own Tasks list:

<Field Type="Choice" ID="{c15b34c3-ce7d-490a-b133-3f4de8801b76}" Name="Status" DisplayName="Task Status" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3" StaticName="Status" ColName="nvarchar4">
  <CHOICES>
   <CHOICE>Not Started</CHOICE>
   <CHOICE>In Progress</CHOICE>
   <CHOICE>Completed</CHOICE>
   <CHOICE>Deferred</CHOICE>
   <CHOICE>Waiting on someone else</CHOICE>
  </CHOICES>
  <MAPPINGS>
    <MAPPING Value="1">Not Started</MAPPING>
    <MAPPING Value="2">In Progress</MAPPING>
    <MAPPING Value="3">Completed</MAPPING>
    <MAPPING Value="4">Deferred</MAPPING>
    <MAPPING Value="5">Waiting on someone else</MAPPING>
  </MAPPINGS>
  <Default>Not Started</Default>
</Field>

Calling GetList to take a look at the list schema is a good way to keep yourself from going crazy.

Now that said, you don’t always get all of the columns for a list when you call GetListItems. By default, you get the columns which are shown in the default view.

In an out of the box Tasks list that I just created, when I make this call:

$().SPServices({
  operation: "GetListItems",
    listName: "Tasks"
});

Status isn’t returned because it’s not in the default view.

<z:row
  ows_Checkmark="boolean;#0"
  ows_LinkTitle="boo"
  ows_AssignedTo=""
  ows_PercentComplete="0.500000000000000"
  ows__ModerationStatus="0"
  ows__Level="1"
  ows_Title="boo"
  ows_ID="1"
  ows_UniqueId="1;#{CC125F6A-F329-46D7-8140-F9353F1AC7EC}"
  ows_owshiddenversion="1"
  ows_FSObjType="1;#0"
  ows_Created_x0020_Date="1;#2014-01-29 13:04:43"
  ows_Created="2014-01-29 13:04:43"
  ows_FileLeafRef="1;#1_.000"
  ows_PermMask="0x7fffffffffffffff"
  ows_Modified="2014-01-29 13:04:43"
  ows_FileRef="1;#sites/Demos2013/jquerylib/Lists/Tasks/1_.000">
</z:row>

Instead, you can add the CAMLViewFields option to request it:

$().SPServices({
  operation: "GetListItems",
    listName: "Tasks",
    CAMLViewFields: "<ViewFields><FieldRef Name='Status'/></ViewFields>"
});

Then I get:

<z:row
  ows_Status="Deferred" 
  ows_MetaInfo="1;#" 
  ows__ModerationStatus="0" 
  ows__Level="1"
  ows_Title="boo" 
  ows_ID="1" 
  ows_UniqueId="1;#{CC125F6A-F329-46D7-8140-F9353F1AC7EC}" 
  ows_owshiddenversion="2" 
  ows_FSObjType="1;#0" 
  ows_Created="2014-01-29 13:04:43" 
  ows_PermMask="0x7fffffffffffffff" 
  ows_Modified="2014-01-29 13:11:21" 
  ows_FileRef="1;#sites/Demos2013/jquerylib/Lists/Tasks/1_.000">
</z:row>

Being explicit about the columns you want to retrieve is always a good practice. People can change the default view easily.