About document library event handlers

Document library event handler support allows software developers to create software that uses document library events to perform automated actions. When you combine document libraries, customized code for event handling, and possibly XML forms, you can create powerful solutions that are easy for users to work with.

For example, in the healthcare industry, admitting a new patient requires that a lot of paperwork be generated in a specific order. You can write an application that interacts with XML forms stored in a form library to do the following:

Track when an employee adds a new admissions form to the document library
Extract the insurance information and forward it to the billing application
Notify the staff in the appropriate section of the hospital to pull the patient's chart

You can track the following events for document libraries.

Event	Description
Insert	A new document is added to the document library.
Update	An existing document is edited.
Delete	An existing document is deleted.
Move	A document is moved or renamed.
Copy	A document or folder is copied.
Check In	A document is checked in.
Check Out	A document is checked out.
Cancel Check-Out	A document check-out is cancelled by another user

For more information about writing managed code to interact with document library events, see the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Software Development Kit.

To allow developers in an organization to use the document library events to write code, you must enable this feature at the virtual server level.