Modifying Title and Location fields in a SharePoint calendar

Question received by email:

"I am trying to make a solution involving a SharePoint Calendar.  Since I can not figure out
how to modify the Type of the Title and Location fields I simply hide them
from view and use my own custom fields for the job.

The trouble appears however when the SharePoint Calendar is viewed in
Outlook.  Outlook relies heavily on the Title and Location fields and since
the these fields are empty the entries appear as blank entries when the
Calendar is viewed in Outlook.

To resolve the issue I would like to find a way auto populate the Title and
Location fields when the user changes the value of my custom fields
(dropdowns).  Is this possible?  If so how can it be done ? or there is a
way to change the type of fields for title  or location to multiple choice
or any other type."

What you want can be accomplished using an event receiver. If you are up for some simple development stuff, check out my intro post on SharePoint Event Receivers.

If you don’t like programming or don’t know how, using a simple SharePoint Designer workflow can solve the same problem. There is a link to a walkthrough on SharePoint Designer Workflows in the above article.

You cannot change the title column. That column is inherited from the Item content type, just like most other Title column. In addition, the Title column has the property FromBaseType set, meaning you cannot change the type.

You could in theory change the Location column, but I advice against it. It is much better to use either a simple workflow or an event receiver to accomplish this.

.b