SharePoint 2007, 2010, and 2013 Cascading Lookup Column Comparison

Scenario

• You have multiple SharePoint lists that are related
• Parent/Child or other relationship
• You want to allow the user to define the relationship via a Lookup Column Dropdown (Combobox) or Multiselect Interface
• Or you need filtered lookups or some other additional lookup functionality

Issue

• The out of the box SharePoint Lookup Field columns are severely limited
• They really only work for relatively small lists of uniquely named items that don't change often
• SharePoint 2010 natively supports related lists, but do not have all the features below
• We need one or more of these advanced features
1. Cascading Updates (and possibly deletes)
• Maintain Referential Integrity
• Updates made in one list are reflected in the lookups.
2. Keyboard filtering from the dropdown and multiselect interfaces
• Autocomplete, find as you type
3. Cascading drop-down filters
• One or more dropdowns to filter the final dropdown
• Ex: State, County, City
4. Lookup filters (likely based on a List View)
• Ex: Only show my Cities, or only show Active Items in the lookup
5. Datasheet view editing (Excel, Access), InfoPath, and Office DIP support
• In most cases this is unavailable.  The workaround is to create a view without the lookup fields for use with Office integration and ensure the lookup fields are not required or have a default value.
6. AJAX
• We don't want to postback when applying realtime filtering
• We may not want to preload all the values for very large lists
7. May be used in a Calculated Column
• Ideally the text field and ID field would both be accessible
8. Supports multiple display fields from the lookup list
• ex: First and Last Name concatenation in the dropdown
• Workaround would be to use a calculated field within the lookup list
9. Link to add an item to the lookup list from the lookup column interface
10. Cross site support
• By default the list must be in the same subsite as the lookup column
11. Cross site-collection support and content type hub support
• Workaround would be to synchronize lookup lists accross site collections using a workflow, content deployment job, or a custom timer job.
12. Two-way relationships
• Items within a lookup list will keep track of where they have been referenced.
• Ex: Orders are linked to a customer via the order form.  On the customer form, you can see the linked orders.
• SharePointBoost's LookupBoost or Sparqube's Lookup Tracker can be installed to provide this information via a separate relationships page.
13. Matches the SharePoint look and feel
• Ex: Inherits themes/styles for drop down
14. Can be created as a site column
• Sometimes only implemented as a list column.
15. Conversion tool 
1. Converts lookup columns to custom lookup
2. Converts custom lookup back to a regular lookup
16. Allow filtering from a multiselect
• Ex: Filter lookup of Cities when multiple States are selected
17. Set the lookup column's default value
18. Referential Integrity (2010 new feature)
• Cascade or disable updates/deletes when the item is used in lookups elsewhere
• Not available on a multi-select
19. Projected Columns (2010 new feature)
• Lists with the lookup column will expose other columns from the lookup list.
• Ex: Order list with a Customer lookup column could also include Customer Phone and Customer Email in the Order list view based on the selected Customer

Resolution

• The following third-party products are available to meet your needs.  This analysis was done based on the marketing material available on their websites and any personal experience I have with them.   ? - denotes unknown feature
• SharePoint 2010 Lookup Column (Out of the box - not third party)
• Features: 1 (includes recycle bin), 2, 5?, 10, 13, 14, (17 via code), 18, 19
• Sparqube SharePoint Lookup Column (SharePoint 2010+)
• Features (provided by vendor): 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
• Note: There are 2 column types to choose from.  Each has advantages and disadvantages.  All features above may not be available depending upon which control you use.
• (12) Sparqube Lookup Tracker provides this as a separate (included) feature
• KWizCom SharePoint Cascading Lookup Plus
• Features: 1?, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12*, 14, 15.1, 17?, 18?, 19?
• Review Notes
• Runtime issues will occur if you are still referencing AJAX 1.x
• Single-select, single-value items appear in a grid format with a header
• Display form grid uses a hyperlink icon rather than text
• Dropdown skins do not match SharePoint but are customizable
• *(12) Same list 2-way relationships are not supported
• For this scenario, use SharePointBoost's LookupBoost or Sparqube's Lookup Tracker
• SharePointBoost Cascaded Lookup
• Features: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (except multiselect), 8*, 9, 10, 12*, 13, 14, 15, 17*, 18, 19
• *(12) Lookup Boost: Provides feature 12 via a separate relationship page
• Review Notes
• Installed properly
• Worked as advertised
• Issue with saving a sub-site as a template after implementing a root level site column and content type.  Workaround provided by SharePointBoost
• *(8) - Doesn't support hyphenated values in the drop-down for SP 2010.
•  *(17) - Only supports defaulting to first item in a view and does not support the standard Default property, so this is difficult to set from code.  Does not support defaults on a multi-select.
• Azu Lookup Plus 2013
• I haven't evaluated this yet.  Please refer to the website.
• Infowise
• Features: 3, 4, 9+, 10, 12 (with bi-directional bundle), 13, 14, 15, 17?, 18?, 19?
• (9+) Enhanced support for inline simple text additions and for task creation
• Bamboo Lookup Selector
• Features: 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 17?, 18?, 19?
• SharePointBoost Cross-Site Lookup
• Features: 2, 10, 15, 17?, 18?, 19?
• Lookup Boost: Provides feature 12 via a separate relationship page
• SharePoint Tool Basket
• Features: 2, 6, 17?, 18?, 19?
• Open Source
• SharePoint Cascaded Lookup Dropdowns
• Features: 3, 6 (client-side only), 17?, 18?, 19?
• Not a column.  Must be applied to each form.
• Open Source
• CodePlex Filtered Lookup
• Features: 4, 10, 17?, 18?, 19?
• Open Source