Lists are one of the most useful features in SharePoint and in the larger Microsoft 365 digital work environment. They are a highly flexible and convenient way to store and view data and content, with a variety of different options related to formatting, access, and workflows, and are extremely easy to use. In this article, we will explain in a little more detail what lists are, what they are for and how to create one, as well as taking a look at the differences with the recently introduced Microsoft Lists.
Since their first introduction in the first versions of Microsoft SharePoint, lists have been one of the essential features of the Microsoft collaboration platform, as well as one of the most useful and loved by users who use it in their digital workplaces every day.
Lists are nothing more than a way to store and display data and content within a SharePoint site in a set of ordered rows and columns, similar to an Excel table or spreadsheet.
A list is a highly flexible way to both manage and view structured information and content within SharePoint, with a variety of options related to formatting, access rights, and different types of content.
SharePoint lists can be used in a wide variety of business scenarios, such as tracking activities and deadlines, storing document information (such as metadata, approval status, or versions), and creating contact databases to keep track of information about customers or suppliers.
The ability to apply specific rules and workflows to your SharePoint lists makes the latter an extremely versatile and customizable tool for all those users who need to collect their data in an orderly and precise manner and keep and use them within a single repository that is easy to access and navigate.
Microsoft introduced the “Microsoft Lists” brand when it substantially updated the functionality of the lists in the wave of updates to its business software in 2020. However, this has generated some confusion among users who have struggled (and sometimes still struggle, especially if they are new to it) to understand how SharePoint lists differ from those generated with Microsoft Lists. So let's do a little bit of clarity about it.
If we look closely, SharePoint lists and Microsoft Lists now have essentially the same functionality and user interface and can be considered practically the same in terms of functionality and management possibilities, but when the Microsoft Lists were initially launched they had more functionality than the SharePoint lists.
The substantial difference now is mainly in the location and access to the lists: the lists generated with SharePoint can only be found within a SharePoint site, which is also the only way to access and consult them, while the Microsoft Lists are located within personal sites or dedicated storage spaces such as Microsoft OneDrive and can be consulted, modified and implemented more autonomously and broadly within the digital work environment of Microsoft 365 software.
So with this rebranding, Microsoft wanted, at the time of the introduction of Microsoft Lists, to emphasize to its target audience that the lists could now be distributed directly in Teams and used independently of normal SharePoint lists without the lists generated by the users being more exclusively linked to the latter.
Not everyone uses SharePoint, but lists are highly versatile and can be used independently, especially within Microsoft Teams and in integrations with Power Apps and the Power Platform.
Another main difference is that Microsoft Lists has its own dedicated web app and a mobile app, available through Google Play and the iOS App Store. The app can present an aggregated view of the lists and help to manage them more precisely.
For those who are wondering right now: yes, it is possible to move SharePoint lists to Microsoft Lists and vice versa. In fact, there is a feature for copying lists from one place to another that would allow you to create a list on a SharePoint site such as a Microsoft List, and vice versa.
There is also an alternative solution that involves copying the SharePoint list into Excel and then copying that into a Microsoft List - a process that also works the other way around. However, there have been some reports that formatting may be lost by running both of these processes.
Now that we have a general idea of what SharePoint lists are (and with the necessary clarifications regarding similarities and differences with Microsoft Lists) it is time to see a little more closely what are the most important advantages given by using this method for viewing and managing your business data.
Many teams may decide to use Excel to store and manage structured information, but in reality SharePoint lists are a superior tool for managing information in most situations because of their versatility.
The lists are in fact highly flexible and scalable. They can be very small or very large, with thousands of elements and accommodate different types of content, including text, images, video, audio, documents, formulas, and metadata. They can also have a wide range of different formats and you can also set up automated workflows to the lists and control their access in a comprehensive way.
This flexibility means that a SharePoint list can satisfy a wide range of use cases and scenarios and is one of the main reasons why SharePoint lists are so useful.
Another great benefit of lists is that they are extremely easy to create and manage; working with lists isn't much different from working with spreadsheets. Thanks to Microsoft's “no code/low code” approach that characterizes modern SharePoint iterations, it won't be necessary to involve the IT department for every operation.
The lists also come with a series of ready-to-use templates with attractive formatting to cover different types of lists, such as asset managers, content planners, budget trackers, issue trackers, and many others. Many of these are provided by Microsoft, but there are also many others available on GitHub from the Microsoft community.
One of the most important characteristics of lists is the high level of control you can have over them: you can manage every single element up to the row, column and cell level and both with regard to formatting and for access control.
For example, you might have several people who update a list of first responders within your organization on the company intranet, but you want these users to be able to update only one column of the list themselves.
The ability to define down to the smallest detail the control of each individual element of the list allows you to protect the rest of the data within it and ensure that other information is not overwritten or deleted by mistake.
When organizations use SharePoint for their intranet or as a reliable repository of information, they often try to ensure that there is a single authoritative source for their data.
SharePoint lists support this need thanks to various features that promote data governance, including extensive access control and integration with Power Automate to ensure that the information kept in a SharePoint list is also updated in other systems, and vice versa.
Since the list can be viewed in different Microsoft 365 tools, it is necessary to have only a single instance of the list, thus supporting a company's goal of having a single authoritative and centralized source for all the most important business data and directories.
Finally, one of the reasons why lists are so convenient to use is their deep integration with other Microsoft 365 tools.
Among the honorable mentions (such as, for example, the integration with Teams), a particularly interesting example is that of the integration with Microsoft Forms, which easily allows us to create a form that allows our users to add information and then instantly populate a SharePoint list; this is very convenient when you want to guide users in entering certain types of information, with a special form that deals with entering data.
The integration with Power Automate, Power Apps and other Power Platform tools is also worth mentioning. Through the automations developed in combination with Power Automate, for example, workflows can be activated when information is modified or added, and then updated in another system, and vice versa.
Or, to give another example, we can think about the integration of interactive modules within our Power Apps that interact dynamically with the contents of our SharePoint lists.
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As we have already mentioned, lists in Microsoft SharePoint work as a versatile container for storing and organizing structured data within SharePoint that can help your company cover a large number of scenarios and situations in which you need to access and keep track of numerous related information quickly and efficiently.
So now let's take a closer look at how to achieve exactly this result by creating a SharePoint list and what are the options available to customize it and integrate it harmoniously into our workflows.
For this particular example, we will dedicate ourselves to creating a list to manage the vacation requests of our company's employees.
We open the web browser and go to the homepage of our SharePoint site and log in with our Microsoft 365 credentials.
Once the login is complete, in the SharePoint navigation bar, we find and click on 'Site Contents'. This will take us to a page that lists all the apps, lists, libraries, and pages currently on our SharePoint site.
Once here, click on the 'New' button and select 'List' from the drop-down menu. This will start the process of creating the new list.
Once the option to create a new list has been selected, in the dialog box that opens, we will be asked to provide a name for the new list. This name should be descriptive and clearly indicate the type of information the list will contain. You can also add an optional description to provide more details about using the list.
In our case, in the dialog box we are going to enter “Vacation Requests” as the name of the list. We then add a description such as 'List to manage and approve employee vacation requests'.
As we mentioned before, SharePoint offers a variety of predefined list templates such as 'Track Activity', 'Contacts', 'Events' and many others that we can use on the fly to configure our lists.
If one of these predefined templates meets our needs, let's select it to simplify the configuration process. If, on the other hand, we prefer to create a personalized list from scratch, we choose the “Custom list” option.
In this example, we are going to create a personalized list, then we select the appropriate option and finally decide if we want the newly created list to be displayed in the quick navigation bar of the SharePoint site, so as to facilitate quick access to the list for us and for other users of the site.
After creating the list, it will initially appear with a single column called 'Title' by default.
Let's click on 'Add Column' to start adding more columns. We can choose different types of data for the columns we want to add, such as Single Text, Choice, Number, Date and Time, etc.
For each column that we are going to add, we specify settings such as column name, data type, and other properties (for example, whether the field is required or not, data validation settings, default values, etc.).
In our case we are going to insert the following columns:
Once the configuration of the columns has been completed, we can dedicate ourselves to customizing the list view by clicking on 'Views' and selecting 'Create new view' or modifying an existing view, thus defining how the data will be displayed, which columns will be shown and the display order we prefer.
In this case we might want to see 'Employee Name', 'Vacation Start Date', 'Vacation End Date' and 'Approval Status', so let's select these columns for viewing.
If you want, you can automate processes related to the list using Power Automate to create customized workflows that are activated when items are added or modified in the list.
In this case, you could, for example, use Power Automate to create a workflow that sends a notification to the manager when a new vacation request is entered and create an approval flow that automatically updates the 'Approval Status' when the manager approves or rejects the request.
SharePoint lists offer many advantages that perfectly qualify them to be used as small databases in SharePoint, which can be created in a short time and with little effort, ready to work on them in a very short time.
This alternative use of SharePoint lists has some interesting advantages that we list below:
However, despite the advantages listed above, the use of SharePoint Lists as a database has as a counterbalance several limitations and the lack of specific advanced functions for managing databases. Among these issues are worth mentioning:
It's important to note that using SharePoint as your primary database is not recommended. However, it is possible to add content databases within SharePoint Server. According to Microsoft, it is possible to add a new content database or attach an existing one to a web application using a backup file.
One way to use SharePoint for database management is to add content databases to SharePoint Server. To do this, simply navigate to the SharePoint Central Administration website and select the 'Manage Content Database' option in the 'Application Management' section. From there, you can add a new content database or attach an existing one to a web application.
When working with SharePoint databases, it's important to manage them properly to ensure they run smoothly and securely. This includes regularly backing up databases, monitoring performance, and checking for errors.
SharePoint also offers features such as the ability to transfer site collections between different databases within SharePoint Server and the option to manage a farm using read-only databases in SharePoint Server, among others. These options provide greater flexibility in managing SharePoint databases and can be useful in certain situations.
Despite the numerous advantages observed in the previous paragraphs, SharePoint lists have as their downside a series of limitations that, although they do not compromise their unquestionable usefulness and versatility, can be binding in highly specific scenarios. Let's take a look at some of the most important limitations of SharePoint Lists:
SharePoint lists can contain a maximum of 30 million items. However, it's important to note that performance can be significantly affected when a list contains more than 5,000 items due to the list's display threshold.
The maximum size for each individual file uploaded to a list is 250 MB, which can be limiting if you need to insert large files and may require finding alternative solutions for compressing your files.
List views can have a maximum of 12 indexed columns. If this limit is exceeded, performance may be compromised and display errors may occur.
There is a limit to the number of columns that can be added to a list. For example, a list can have up to 276 columns in total, with restrictions on specific types of columns.
While SharePoint offers compliance and regulatory capabilities, some organizations may find it necessary to integrate additional tools to fully meet their legal and regulatory compliance needs.
While SharePoint supports workflows and automations, complex workflows may require significant customization or the use of advanced tools such as Power Automate. In addition, the workflows created with SharePoint Designer 2010 and 2013 have become obsolete with the arrival of the Power Platform suite and need to be updated or migrated to Power Automate.
Managing permissions at the item level can become complex and difficult to manage, especially in lists with a large number of items and with extensive security requirements.
Integrations with other external systems may be limited and require customized development solutions or third-party solutions to be implemented effectively.
Advanced search and filtering may be limited compared to dedicated software for more robust databases or data management tools. Configuring advanced search options may require the assistance of consultants and developers with specific technical expertise.
To conclude our overview, we can only reiterate that lists still remain, many years after their introduction, one of the most versatile tools for storing and organizing structured data within SharePoint and their usefulness in helping all types of companies in a wide range of situations in which you want to access and keep track of numerous related information in a fast, efficient and precise way is unquestionable.
All that remains is to invite you to personally test the potential and advantages offered by this functionality which, since its first iteration, has become one of the essential features of SharePoint and one of the most appreciated by users who use the Microsoft web collaboration platform every day within their digital workspaces.
SharePoint lists are a flexible way to store and display data within SharePoint sites, similar to Excel tables, but with advanced features like workflows, access control, and customization options.
Microsoft Lists and SharePoint lists share similar functionalities, but Microsoft Lists can be accessed independently, are integrated with Microsoft Teams, and offer a dedicated mobile app.
SharePoint lists are highly scalable, easy to create and manage, offer advanced control levels, and integrate seamlessly with other Microsoft 365 tools.
Yes, SharePoint lists can function as small databases with advantages like no special permissions or additional costs, though they have limitations compared to traditional databases.
Key limitations include a maximum of 30 million items, a 250 MB file size limit, and challenges with complex workflows, advanced search, and filtering.
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