How To Customize SharePoint Lists: Organize your day-to-day items and data By Ruzbeh Kheirabi Each day of our lives, we deal with itemized sets of tasks, responsibilities and a host of other daily items. These items are sometimes performed or maintained in a certain order, and sometimes they have no order whatsoever. The items can repeat themselves at times, or be unique to a certain day or scenario. I know what you’re thinking: “I have to-do lists for these kinds of things.” Not quite.

Even though at times our lives feel like nothing but lists, a single to-do list cannot fulfill all of our needs. What if the items we are dealing with are prices or lists of items on hand? You cannot add those to a to-do list.

Windows SharePoint Services version 3.0 (http://tinyurl.com/2bjvpr) is a free add-on service for Windows Server 2003 that can be used to build dynamic Web-based business applications and databases. One of the many great features of WSS is Custom Lists. Do not let the word “List” fool you, as you can do wonders with it.

Think of a list in WSS as an Excel spreadsheet that has columns and rows. Each row identifies a new set of values for each column. Let’s say, for example, that you need to keep a list of team members, including their ages and phone numbers. (See Figure below.)



You can create a spreadsheet with three columns: Name, Age and Phone Number. Rows can then be populated with every-one’s name, age and phone number. For many of you, this may seem perfect.

However, keep in mind the following questions which may arise:

• Where will you store this spreadsheet?
  
• What if your supervisor also needs to view it? What if other people need to view this list for any reason? How would you give them access to it?
  
• How will you enter data? To enter the data, you must go line by line, since no user interface exists for you to input the data in any other way.
  

These are just a few of many issues and questions that can arise when dealing with spreadsheets and/or file-based documents.

WSS allows you to create customizable lists with a wide variety of different column types that are automatically created, econo-mizing the amount of work that has to be done. Additionally, WSS can create the appropriate forms for data entry and editing. Furthermore, your data and lists are stored centrally on a Web interface that can be accessed from anywhere, based on permitted access that you set.

Let’s go ahead and create the above mentioned Excel spreadsheet in WSS. We will assume that you are logging onto your WSS site as a site owner or member. To create a custom list, follow the steps on the next page.

STEP 1. After logging into your WSS site, you will see a Site Actions button on the right hand side. Click on it, and select Create. You will then be redirected to the Create page, which gives you the option to create a variety of different WSS content and lists. WSS is a robust and powerful web-based service that has the capability not only to create lists, but also to manage and maintain different types of data and content. As you can see on the Create page, you can create Wikis, Picture libraries, Discussion Board vs Surveys, and many other items.

STEP 2. On the Create page, click on Custom List.

STEP 3. On the New page, give the list a name. In this instance, we will name it Team Members Info. You can also add a description to better describe and distinguish your list. Additionally, you can specify if you want your list to show on the quick launch bar. When you have finished, click on the Create button.

STEP 4. After the list is created, you will be redirected to the All Items view of the list. In WSS, each list has different views that can be customized to meet your needs without any programming or technical knowledge. This makes it very easy for non-technical users to master WSS. These views are capable of showing different data from a list based on criteria or groupings needed by the user. As you see, there are New, Actions and Settings buttons, and currently only one column named the Title column. By default, every list created in WSS has the default column Title, which can later be renamed or hidden. The paper clip icon represents attachments. In WSS lists, you have the ability to attach documents or files to a list item. This feature can be disabled under the Advanced Settings of the List Settings.

STEP 5. To customize the columns of our list, click on Settings and select List Settings. You will be then redirected to the List Settings page, which allows you to customize and configure different options and settings for your list, including adding or removing columns.

STEP 6. Under the Columns header, you will see the different columns that are in the list and their types. WSS allows for different types of columns, including but not limited to text, numbers, currency and date and time. The first thing we want to do is to rename the Title column to display FullName. Go ahead and click on Title and on the Change Column page. Type FullName under the column name and click OK.

STEP 7. We still need to create two more columns: age and phone number. To create a new column, click Create Column.

STEP 8. On the Create Column page, enter Age as the column name and select Number as the column type. Under additional column settings, set the Number of Decimal Places to 0 and click OK.

STEP 9. We still need to create one more column, the Phone Number column. Go ahead and click Create Column one more time, and enter Phone Number as the column name. Leave the already selected column type of Single Line of Text in place, and click OK.

STEP 10. You should be back at the Customize Team Members Info page. Under the Columns header, you will see all three of your needed columns. As we performed these tasks, WSS also created the necessary forms that will allow us to enter, edit and view the data in our list. Click on the Home link at the top of your page and then click on the Team Members Info link on the left in the quick launch bar. You will now notice the three columns we created.

STEP 11. To add data to your list, go ahead and click on New. You will be redirected to the Team Members Info New Item form, which allows you to enter the needed data for each team member. Go ahead and enter John, who is 23, with a phone number of 111-111-2323. Then click OK.

STEP 12. You will be redirected back to the Team Members Info page, and the new row of data will be automatically added for you. You can edit or delete an item by clicking on the Full Name of the team member. You can add more items by clicking on New.

About the Author

Ruzbeh Kheirabi is the president of Rooznet Consulting, Inc., which provides IT consulting and training services to a variety of small and home businesses. An MCT since 2004, he teaches part-time at different organizations, including NetCom Information Technology. Additionally, he works full-time as a network administrator for Southern Westchester BOCES, where he manages and maintains an entire school district's network of 2,500 users on 600 desktops with 15 servers over four sites. Mr. Kheirabi holds a multitude of certifications on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008 and Windows SharePoint. In his free time, he enjoys coding network utilities, studying to keep up with the latest technology and working out.

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