Okay, people, this is cool.

You all know I'm an old Lotus Programmer and we had an @DBLookup function that could go anywhere to grab a list of values to populate a lookup list.  It was way much cooler that SharePoint's alleged "Lookup" value type.  But, with site columns we're getting a little closer.  If you've ever wanted to see a quick and easy solution using site columns, this is it.

What I have is a number of site each with a directory that contains names and addresses and phone numbers and each item is assigned to one or more categories.  For example, I have categories for "Family", "Aquaintances", "Neighbors", and "Collegues".

And, since we all have our own site where we keep our own contact lists, I'd like to be able to maintain one lookup list for everybody's contact list categories.

First, I create a list in my home site.  I call it Contact Categories and I add my values as noted above.

Then, at the home level, I click Site Actions | Site Settings | Site Columns and then Create.  I name my column Contact Categories and I make it a Lookup datatype.  I put it in a new group called Home Lookups.  Then I tell it to look up from my Contact Categories list and use the Title.

Now, with the column in the bag, I go to my team site where my personal contact list is stored and I open my contact list and select Settings | List Settings and click on the link at the bottom of the Columns list that says Add from existing site columns.

I select my Home Lookups group and add my Contact Categories column.

Now, when I create a new contact, it edit item form reaches all the way out to my home site and provides values from the category list there.

This will obviously allow you to provide a central location for lookup lists that can now be managed seperately from the lists that will use the values.

hth

-robot