Lists in SharePoint

SharePoint Lists

SharePoint is about collaboration and document management. SharePoint stores majority of  content information in lists, or variations of lists.

Built-in List Types

 SharePoint list falls into  six categories:

• Blank & Custom: Blank and custom lists allow you to define your own list columns and views. They are ideal when importing data from other sources such as spreadsheets and external data sources. They also allow you to build lists structures that are significantly different from the other list templates.

•  Collaboration: Out of the box, SharePoint provides only a single collaboration style list, the Discussion Board. This list lets you easily manage discussion threads.You can even configure the list to hide entries until someone approves them.

•  Content & Data: This group includes those lists most often used to display content on pages.

•  Search: This category includes lists that viewers often use to search for specific information such as events on a calendar or tasks within a project.

•  Tracking: These lists track things such as personal and project tasks, issues, and language and translation workflows.

•  Web Databases: Out of the box, this category has no list templates.

SharePoint Foundation List templates

List Template	Description
Announcements	Used for sharing news; an expiration date can be set for each announcement in the list.
Calendar	List that tracks team events, social events, milestones, etc.;the calendar list can be optionally synchronized with Microsoft Outlook.
Contacts	List for storing contact information with optional Microsoft Outlook integration.
Custom List	An empty list definition; it is supposed to be extended with custom columns. This list type is also used when Microsoft Excel spreadsheets are exported to lists.
Custom List in DataSheet View	List displaying Access datasheets; in order to use this type of list you need to enable SharePoint support in Office Professional.
DiscussionBoard	List for storing a threaded discussion.
Tasks	List for task items that can optionally be integrated with SharePoint workflow and Microsoft Outlook.
Links	List for managing hyperlinks
Project Tasks	List of tasks with support for Gant Chart rendering. Data from the list can be integrated into Microsoft Project Server through Project Web Access.
Survey	List used for creating surveys to collect feedback on certain  topics.
Issue Tracking	List for tracking issues.
Document   Library	Standard document library used to store Word, Excel, and other documents.

List definition


A list definition defines a schema for a SharePoint list. It contains information on what views are being used, which columns and content types are being used, and other metadata information. A list definition is an XML file,written in the Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML), a markup language specific to SharePoint


List Template
It can either be created by end users through the SharePoint user interface using an existing list as a pattern or using an existing list  instance.

List Instance

A list instance is an instance of a specific SharePoint list definition or list template. All of its data is stored in the relevant content database. This is typically a list in SharePoint used by end users to enter and view data and it is based on either a list template or list definition. A list instance can be created in many ways, but commonly by:

• Creating an empty list manually and then defining it column by column
• with the SharePoint UI.
• Creating a new list manually by selecting a list template to base it on.
• Using the SharePoint object model.
• Using a list definition referenced from a site definition when a site is created

Site Column

A site column is a column definition that is defined at a site level and is available for reuse amongst child sites. SharePoint comes with a set of preinstalled site column definitions.

List View

It  defines how the list is displayed to the user. A list view includes information that tells  SharePoint which list columns to display, the order in which to display them, and the sorting and filtering to use when displaying the list.

Content Type 

A content type is a reusable definition of the schema used by a list item.Content types are stored at a site level so they can be reused in the site and across all the child sites and lists in and under the site in which they are defined.
Built-in content types available by default in SharePoint .Examples include those representing a contact, task, document, and so forth.
 A list may contain one or more content types—for example, you could have a document library that contains only documents or you could have the document library contain additional more specialized content types, such as “Expense Report” or “Invoice” that have custom data and templates used for them. This makes a list even more flexible because it can contain multiple
data types.

Posted in: Built-in List Types in sharepoint,SharePoint Lists