Keep your spreadsheets off my SharePoint; make your own database in minutes

David M Williams
Friday, 26 June 2009 06:37

Business IT - Technology

Open your SharePoint site. Click the Site Actions menu. Click Create to begin the process of making your own creation, then Custom List.

Alternatively, depending on your level of access, from Site Actions you may click Site Settings, then Site libraries and lists. This shows the existing items in your site and allows you to edit (or “customize”) any of them. Click Create new content then Custom List.

Once you have opted to make a new list you will be prompted for the name of the list as well as a descriptive comment. The name will be shown in navigation items like the quick launch area and is also how you will refer to the list if you make other content in future that allows the user to select values from the list.

Click Create once you have entered this information. You will now see the default view for your list which, of course, advises there are no items to show.

Ultimately, your users will click New here to make new entries in the list. For the moment, click Settings then List Settings.

SharePoint will present all the configuration options you require. You can rename the list, set access permissions, delete the list and perform other tasks.

For our immediate purposes, note the Columns section. This is where you can add as many columns of information that you require as well as stipulate the type of data to be stored along with default values, whether the column is mandatory or not and so forth. You can re-order the columns and you can rename existing columns (such as “Title”.)