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I have a feature receiver which batch updates a particular field / column in my list. Code is provided below.

NB: This is very simple list item batch processing code which I got from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc404818(v=office.12).aspx. I do this instead of looping through the entire list because it has 1000s of rows.

 public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) { using (SPWeb web = properties.Feature.Parent as SPWeb) { SPList list = web.Lists["MyList"]; SPQuery query = new SPQuery(); query.RowLimit = 100; do { // Get the next batch of 100 uninitialised items. SPListItemCollection uninitialisedItems = list.GetItems(query); // Batch update the list items. StringBuilder methodBuilder = new StringBuilder(); string batchFormat = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>" + "<ows:Batch OnError=\"Continue\">{0}</ows:Batch>"; string methodFormat = "<Method ID=\"{0}\">" + "<SetList>{1}</SetList>" + "<SetVar Name=\"Cmd\">Save</SetVar>" + "<SetVar Name=\"ID\">{2}</SetVar>" + "<SetVar Name=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#MyField\">{4}</SetVar>" + "</Method>"; for (int i = 0; i < uninitialisedItems.Count; i++) { int itemID = uninitialisedItems[i].ID; methodBuilder.AppendFormat(methodFormat, itemID, list.ID.ToString(), itemID, 1); } // THIS IS THE LINE THAT IS CAUSING MY ALERTS TO BE SENT. list.ParentWeb.ProcessBatchData(string.Format(batchFormat, methodBuilder.ToString())); query.ListItemCollectionPosition = uninitialisedItems.ListItemCollectionPosition; } while (query.ListItemCollectionPosition != null); } }

The problem here is that an email alert is being sent for every one of my list items saying that it has changed. I want to prevent this alert from being sent as I am merely setting a field that is not made visible to the user. Any idea how to do this?

FYI: I am using MOSS 2007

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2 Answers 2

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You could use SystemUpdate instead of ProcessBatchData. False should mean modified date doesn't change:

SPListItem item = ???; item["myField"] = "my value"; item.SystemUpdate(false);

Of course, this means you have to update each item one at a time instead of the batch process which may lead to performance issues.

See also, how to temporarily disable email notification while updating items in code?.

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  • Works like a charm. Commented Dec 16, 2011 at 7:54
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If ProcessBatchData is required due to performance/load constraints, you can programmatically disable alerts by iterating through SPWeb.Alerts and finding those associated with your list.

This answer gives a good code example for this: Deactivate email-notifications for SPLists only temporally (and programmatically)

This is applicable in SP2007 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spweb.alerts(v=office.12).aspx)

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  • I had actually considered this @Russell, however the list I am updating is a large tracking list which gets used almost constantly by other employees. So whilst your solution would work from a technical standpoint, we didn't want to disable the alerts that users should be getting (during regular day-to-day list activities) and therefore affect the business. NB: our list has thousands of rows and so takes roughly twenty minutes to update, so the system would then be "down" for this time. We wanted the change/upgrade to be completely transparent to the end user and not affect their work. Commented Dec 22, 2011 at 5:13
  • Thanks for the clarification. It appears in your case, as you say, the approach from Kit was the best. Hopefully this answer will help in other scenarios too. :) Commented Dec 22, 2011 at 5:20