How to create a modern SharePoint list

Being able to add new pages to your SharePoint site is a basic task that any admin should know how to do. Microsoft has moved things around recently which makes creating a new page in SharePoint something of a challenge if you haven’t done it recently or if you’re new to the process.

The most significant is that they have moved a variety of commands into the gear icon near your account name at the top right corner of the page. Previously this gear icon only took you into your account settings but now as you work your way around managing Sharepoint you’ll find that this is a new context menu giving you different options depending on where you are in the site.

Additionally, Microsoft has integrated the new apps Flow and PowerApps into Sharepoint giving you more options for workflow and mobile access.

Let’s create a new list

Click on the gear icon and select Add an app from the menu and then choose the Custom List app.

Enter a name for your new list and then press the Create button

SharePoint will create new page for you list and then you will be taken to a list of all of the pages and rapps in your Sharepoint site. Scroll down the list until you see your new list and click to go to it.

Create the columns

Once you’re in the new page click on the gear icon again and

select List settings from the menu

Click on Create column and enter the information for your new column.

Continue adding columns until you have created all of the ones that you need for your list. I like to always add a description. The description will be visible to the person adding data to the list and can be very helpful in making sure that the correct data is entered.

Here is an example of list that I created. Notice that you can create a variety of different data types in the columns

Ordering the columns

SharePoint will place the columns in the order that you created them but that might not be the order that you want to leave them in. You will also want to select the order that the entries appear in. In the example above they are ordered by descending date.

To order your columns. Select the column ordering link (you’ll find this just under the create column link shown above) and then choose the rank order each column will appear in with 1 starting on the left. Press OK.

If you want to make sure that the person entering data is required to include a particular column, click on the column title and select the Require that this column contains information radio button.

By default a view of the page is set up called All Items. You can also create a custom view and make it the default view if you don’t like this one. However for most cases the All Items view will be sufficient. If you would like to sort your list based on a particular column then click on the view to edit it.

Scroll down to find the sort settings and then choose how you want the page to sort the data. In my case I have this pages data sorted by the Date Ordered column in descending order.

Time to publish it

When you are finished your list is ready for publication. Go back to the Settings page and click on the List name, description and navigation link.

Then press the Yes radio button to display this list on the Quick Launch menu

Entering Data

SharePoint will automatically generate an entry form which is accessible from the New link at the top of your published list. When a person clicks New the form will be presented. Here you can see why I like to include a description for the fields. They serve as instructions for adding data to the list.

Now you have a functioning list. We can further enhance the function of this list by using the new app Flow and PowerApps which you see links for at the top of the page. A tutorial for using those new features is available elsewhere on this blog.

Originally posted in 2017 this popular post was migrated over from our previous blog

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