In the SharePoint community, the SharePoint list is one of the most used and discussed features. In this blog, we will explain the SharePoint list, why you should use it, and go over some of the most common issues users have with it.
So, what exactly is a SharePoint List? Microsoft defines a SharePoint list as a collection of data that you can share with members of your team and people to whom you have granted access. Everything you do in SharePoint can be thought of as a list. When you work with Excel, for example, you manage lists of information - columns, headers at the top, and information listed down. Within SharePoint, you can create a SharePoint list with columns, records, and headers. In layout, it is remarkably like an excel spreadsheet. In comparison to Excel, SharePoint lists allow you to organize information in a more dynamic and flexible manner. You can also sort, group, format, and filter available lists to display the most important and necessary information. It should be noted that you can also automate a list to save time and effort while streamlining your work.
What can you do with the list?
- Create a table with columns for Text, Number, Choice, Currency, Date and Time, Lookup, Yes/No, and Calculated values. You can also attach one or more files to a list item to provide more information.
- Create list views to organize, sort, and filter data in numerous ways; edit information, such as adding and deleting columns and changing validation rules.
- You also may construct relationships across lists and preserve data integrity by using a combination of unique columns, relationship enforcement, and lookup columns.
- Track versions and full history require approval before changing data, use item-level and folder security, check-in and check-out, and use email alerts, or RSS feeds to automatically remain notified about changes.
- Organize material in a single list into folders for greater convenience and improved performance and use indexing to improve overall efficiency with huge lists.
Let's have a look at the various types of lists available in SharePoint:
- Announcements: used to communicate information and status, as well as to serve as a reminder.
- Contacts: Keep track of the people and groups with whom you collaborate. Although a contacts list isn't used to manage your site's members, it can be used to store and distribute contacts for your company, such as a list of external vendors.
- Discussion boards: Provide a central location to record and store team discussions in a newsgroup-like fashion. Discussion boards can store email discussions from most standard email programs if your administrator has enabled lists on your site to receive email messages. You could, for example, construct a discussion board for your company's new product launch.
- Links: Create a hub for links to the Internet, your company's intranet, and other services. You could, for example, compile a list of links to your customers' websites or most useful links for Payroll process.
- Promoted Links: Create a visual representation of a collection of links.
- Calendar: Keep track of your team's activities or use it for specific scenarios like business holidays. A calendar, similar to a desk or wall calendar, gives visual views of your team's events, such as meetings, social gatherings, and all-day events. You can also keep track of team milestones that aren't tied to a set time frame, such as deadlines or product release dates.
- Tasks: Keep track of project details and other to-do items for your team. You can give tasks to people and keep track of their status and completion % as the task progresses. You can, for example, build a task list for your organization's budgeting process, which you can then monitor and update in Outlook alongside your other activities.
- Project tasks: With a Gantt chart and progress bars, you can keep track of your tasks. As the assignment progresses, you may keep track of its status and percentage completion. For example, you can use your website to construct a project task list to identify and allocate tasks for the creation of a SOPS.
- Issue tracking: Keep track of information about specific difficulties, such as customer service issues. You can assign issues to them, categorize them, and link them together. You can, for example, construct an issue-tracking list to keep track of customer support issues and remedies.
- Survey: Use an employee satisfaction survey or a quiz to gather and compile comments. You can customize your questions and answers in a variety of ways, as well as get a summary of your input. For example, you can conduct a survey for the top performing employee of the month.
- Custom: You can also create a custom list from scratch!
As you can see, SharePoint lists have a wide range of applications, we love SharePoint lists, and we hope that this brief review will help you in getting started with them.
About Consovenio
Consovenio is a multicultural team of Microsoft developers and SharePoint Experts who come from many different countries and continents. Yet there is one thing that brings us all together: a passion for current trends in technology and business. We are always eager to learn - and to share what we've discovered with others. That is why we have teamed up on a mission to provide our knowledge and experience to organizations that struggle with their SharePoint Intranet.
We have worked with various companies throughout our 11 years of work experience, ranging from small local businesses to international corporations. Our know - how is your golden opportunity.We are ready to tackle new projects with the kind of confidence that comes from a deep mastery of our field.