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Create a Training Task List in SharePoint Online.
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Quick reference
Creating a Task List
Create a task list in SharePoint to manage and track team tasks and to-do items.
When to use
Create a task list in SharePoint whenever you want to keep track, manage and update team tasks and to-do items.
Instructions
Create a task list
- From the horizontal menu, click the drop-down arrow next to New.
- Select App.
- Scroll through the list of apps and select the Tasks template.
- Type a name for the task list and click Create.
Add the task list to the Quick Launch Menu
To make lists easier to access, add them to the Quick Launch Menu.
- From Site Contents, hover the mouse over the new task list.
- Click the three dots.
- Select Settings.
- Click List name, description and navigation.
- From the Navigation section, check the Yes box to display the list on the Quick Launch Menu.
Reorder Quick Launch Menu items
Items can be moved around and reorganized in the Quick Launch Menu.
- Click the Edit button at the bottom of the Quick Launch Menu.
- Click the three dots next to the menu item we want to move.
- Choose Move up or Move down.
- Click Save.
Renaming the list
Lists can be renamed after they have been created and given more meaningful or user-friendly names.
- Click the Edit button at the bottom of the Quick Launch Menu.
- Click the three dots next to the list to rename.
- Choose Edit from the menu.
- Modify the display name and click OK.
Hints & tips
- When creating a list in SharePoint, it's best practice to create the list with no spaces in the name. This prevents additional, strange characters from appearing in the URL making it hard to read and unnecessarily long. The display name of the list can be renamed to something more user-friendly afterwards.
- If we add a list to the Quick Launch Menu but it doesn't appear immediately, refresh the browser (F5).
- When working on pages that are set to display in classic view, all commands to manage the list are located on standard ribbons running across the top of the page.
- 00:04 So now we understand how lists work in SharePoint, it's time for
- 00:08 us to create one.
- 00:09 And what I'm going to do in this example is I'm going to create a training
- 00:13 task list.
- 00:15 So this might be something that contains lots of to do items,
- 00:18 things that need to be done either by myself or other members of the team.
- 00:23 Now one thing you'll notice, if you look at the quick launch menu on the left hand
- 00:27 side is that I've deleted out the training task list that I'd
- 00:30 already created because we're going to recreate it for from scratch.
- 00:34 Now remember when it does come to creating lists in SharePoint,
- 00:37 you have two different options depending on if you're using the modern or
- 00:41 the classic experience.
- 00:43 So if we jump up to the New button and click the drop down,
- 00:47 I could choose to select List from here.
- 00:49 And this is going to show me some of these newer list templates.
- 00:53 And what you'll notice is that I want to create a task list and
- 00:57 the templates that I can see here,
- 00:59 I don't really see anything that matches exactly what I want to do.
- 01:03 I could obviously create a blank list from scratch, but
- 01:06 what I'm going to do is I'm going to use one of the inbuilt task templates.
- 01:11 So let's close this window down and go to our second option when it comes to
- 01:15 creating lists and that is by using a little app.
- 01:18 Now this should look reasonably familiar to you, we have been in here before.
- 01:22 This is the area where you can find all of your list and library templates.
- 01:26 And if we take a look through at the tiles you can see in the top row there,
- 01:31 I have a template for a tasks list.
- 01:34 So let's click it.
- 01:36 Now I will say that one of the best things about using templates for
- 01:39 your lists is that you don't need to define the column headings yourself.
- 01:43 The template already includes them so it saves you quite a bit of time.
- 01:47 Now the first thing we need to do here is we need to give our task list a name.
- 01:52 So in this box, I'm just going to call this, TrainingTasks.
- 01:58 And one thing you'll note there is that I haven't put a space separating those two
- 02:03 words and there is a good reason for that.
- 02:06 Now, the name that you use here is not only the name that users will see, but
- 02:10 it's also the name that will appear in the URL.
- 02:13 Now if you put a space in between two words, what you're going to find is
- 02:17 that in the URL that space is going to be replaced with some strange characters.
- 02:21 So you might see a percentage sign, or a number 20, something like that.
- 02:24 So you end up with quite a messy looking URL.
- 02:28 So in order to avoid that,
- 02:30 I prefer to create the list with no spaces in the name and
- 02:33 then I can always go back and change what the user sees and add that space back in.
- 02:38 So now we have our name, let's click on Create.
- 02:41 Now what you'll see immediately is that it's jumped me to the site contents page
- 02:45 in SharePoint.
- 02:47 And site contents is basically where you can find everything that you've created
- 02:51 within SharePoint.
- 02:52 So, every time you create a list, or a library, or a page,
- 02:55 you're going to be able to find it within site contents.
- 02:59 And this is where my task list is now stored.
- 03:03 And if I scroll down, you can see right at the bottom, there it is, TrainingTasks.
- 03:08 Now one thing you also might notice is that if you're using the classic
- 03:12 experience when you create a new list, you're going to see that automatically in
- 03:17 your quick launch menu on the left hand side.
- 03:20 Whereas if you are using the modern experience,
- 03:22 it doesn't automatically put it in there for you.
- 03:26 Now, I actually do want this TrainingTasks list to be easily accessible from this
- 03:30 quick launch menu.
- 03:31 So how do we move it across?
- 03:34 Well, this is slightly more complicated than it probably needs to be.
- 03:38 But if we hover our mouse over TrainingTasks,
- 03:41 you'll see that we get these three dots.
- 03:44 When we click, it's going to open up a menu of more actions and
- 03:47 we want to jump in to settings.
- 03:49 Now, there's a whole host of different settings on this page, but
- 03:52 the one that we want is the one that's currently highlighted list name,
- 03:56 description, and navigation.
- 03:58 And this is where you can choose if you want to display this particular list or
- 04:01 library, whatever it is that you're creating on that quick launch menu.
- 04:06 So all I need to do here is check the yes radio button and click on Save, and
- 04:11 then just refresh my page.
- 04:13 So to do this, I'm just going to click back on Home.
- 04:16 We can now see is that right at the bottom here we have TrainingTasks.
- 04:20 Now at this stage, I may look at my quick launch menu and think to myself, well,
- 04:25 I don't really want TrainingTasks listed right at the bottom,
- 04:28 I want this to appear with my other lists and libraries.
- 04:31 So if you ever want to reorder items in this quick launch menu,
- 04:34 that's a simple case of clicking the edit button.
- 04:37 And you'll now see that when we're in edit mode,
- 04:40 we get these three dots next to each of these menu items.
- 04:44 So now what I can do is click the three dots and
- 04:47 you can see I have a move up menu item.
- 04:50 So I'm going to move TrainingTasks up one, and then click on Save, and
- 04:55 I've very simply reordered that navigation menu.
- 04:58 Another thing I might want to do as I'm already here is change the way that this
- 05:03 name looks to the user.
- 05:04 If you remember, I didn't put a space in between the words.
- 05:08 So again, if we click the Edit button at the bottom,
- 05:12 and click the three dots, I can choose Edit from the menu.
- 05:17 And this is going to allow me to change the display name in that navigation menu
- 05:21 of this particular task list.
- 05:23 So I'm just going to put a space in there, and click on OK, and then Save.
- 05:28 So now I've created my TrainingTasks list, let's click on it,
- 05:32 which is going to jump us across to our blank task list.
- 05:35 Obviously I need to populate this with lots of different tasks.
- 05:39 Now we're going to do that in the next lesson,
- 05:41 I'm going to show you how to add tasks to your task list.
- 05:44 But a couple of things to point out before we leave this particular lesson,
- 05:48 take a look at our column headings.
- 05:49 These are from the template remember, we have Task Name, Due Date, and Assigned To.
- 05:55 And this page is actually using the classic experience.
- 05:59 And when we use the classic experience,
- 06:01 we have access to ribbons at the top of the screen.
- 06:03 So you'll notice we have BROWSE, TASKS, and LIST.
- 06:08 So if I click LIST, for example, it's going to drop down that ribbon and
- 06:11 I have lots and lots of different options, things I can do with this particular list.
- 06:15 And if you want a quick way of getting back to those list settings you have
- 06:19 a List Settings button in the Settings group right on the end here.
- 06:23 When we click it, this screen is hopefully going to look familiar to everybody
- 06:28 because this is where we came in order to a add task list to the quick launch menu.
- 06:34 And you have three different sections when it comes to your list settings.
- 06:37 We have our General Settings, Permissions and Management, and also Communications.
- 06:43 And we're going to be exploring some of these as we go through the course.
- 06:47 But for now, that is how you create a task list in SharePoint.
- 06:51 In the next lesson, we're going to start to add some tasks.
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