No doubt many of you have downloaded some of the Fantastic 40 templates and on the surface some seem a bit bland. Nothing more than a normal team site with a few extra lists. Let's start digging a little deeper…

First up I thought we could look at the Contacts Management Template. I'll admit that, based on the name, I thought this would be a mini CRM solution. While it is not a CRM anything, it demonstrates a nice way of filtering contacts based on what it being typed into an input box in real time.

I have loaded in over 100 almost random names so you can try it out http://templates.wssdemo.com/contacts/default.aspx

It uses a Form Web Part for the input box and some client side java script to refresh an iframe using another aspx page that just contains a Data View web part rendering the contacts list with a filter applied which the DVWP gets from the URL parameter specified in the iframe src attribute.

You can see this page on its own here http://templates.wssdemo.com/contacts/Results.aspx?Search=j

This is easily a feature you could incorporate into a bigger site.