A SharePoint List

A list in SharePoint is used to store data across columns in separate rows. You can think of a list as a table in a database that will have columns and rows. You can also think of it as a spreadsheet with columns and rows. Items such as issues, software bugs, employee addresses, phone numbers, web site links or pretty much anything else can be stored.

There are different data types that can be used for each column. The standard types include text, number and date as well as link, user, choice, image and many other types.

The data in the list is displayed through views. A list will always have a default view that displays all items. You may create any number of views and choose which columns to display, what to filter by, how to order by and what to group on.

Security permissions are inherited from the site the list is created in unless you specify unique permissions. Each item's security permissions inherits from it's list's (parent) permission unless you specify unique permissions for it.

Workflows can be created in SharePoint Designer or Visual Studio and added to the list to run when items are added, updated or deleted. This gives you the ability to modify data within the list, add items in other lists or delete associated items anywhere.

Creating a List

Now we can start by creating a List. As mentioned  SharePoint List is a collection of items. We can specify columns as metadata for the List. We can create a List based on existing templates or from scratch.

Click on the Lists option from the left side and click the Create button. The following dialog box appears:

Choose one of the templates; for example Announcements. Enter the name for your list and Click the Create button. The new List will be created as shown below:

You can use the Items or List ribbons to add item, or modify the view.

Adding items to a List

Click on the Add new Announcement link from the List and you will get the following screen:

Enter the details for Announcement and click the Save button. Your new item will be displayed as below:

Deleting a List

We might be required to delete an existing entire List. In this case do the following steps.

1. Open the List.
2. Click the List ribbon menu item

3. Click List Settings

4.Use Delete this List link

Now the list will be deleted from the site.

Note: In a list there is always an ID column which is hidden. So while creating custom columns for the list, the name ID will be reserved. It is case-sensitive too.

Indexes on List

SharePoint allows us to manage large amounts of data. The data are actually be stored inside SQL Server database tables. So we can suggest the Indexing feature of tables to allow faster fetching of records. We can use the Indexed Columns feature of any List to provide indexing.

Click on the List Settings > Indexed Columns link to pen Indexed Columns page.

Use the Create a new Index in the upcoming page. Choose the column for indexing and click the Ok button to create the index.

Now the index will be successfully created and shown in the index details of List.