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About this lesson

Understand what list views are and how they can be helpful when viewing list information. 

Quick reference

Understanding List Views

List views help us view our lists in different ways. When we create a list from a template, many of the templates come with their own set of list views. It is worth noting that not all templates contain different list views, but many do. 

Instructions

Let's use the Training Task List as our example. This list is showing using the classic experience. The task list contains different tasks, some are active and some are completed. By default, we can see all of the tasks regardless of their status as we are clicked on the All Tasks view. However, there are a few different views: All Tasks, Calendar, Completed, and then if we click the three dots we have four other views. All of these views are included in the Task List template. 

  • Click Calendar to view tasks in a calendar format. 
  • Click Completed to show just the completed tasks. 
  • Click the three dots and Gantt Chart to see the tasks in Gantt chart view (similar to MS Project on a timeline). 

List views in the Modern Experience

The process of switching between views is different in the modern experience. Let's use our Training Contacts list for this example:

  • Go to Training Contacts. 
  • The default view is All Contacts. 
  • In the top right-hand corner, click the drop-down arrow next to where it says All Contacts.

if there are other views available in the template, they will be listed here. This particular template only contains one view: All Contacts. 

If we would like to view our Training Contacts in a different way, for example, if we want a view that only shows contacts from a certain company or department, we can create our own custom view. This is more efficient than applying filters each time. 

Hints & Tips

  • Filters can be used to achieve a similar result to views, however, it is less efficient to use filters as they need to be reapplied each time we access the list. 
  • Not all templates contain multiple views. 
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  • 00:04 It's time now to move on to the topic of list views.
  • 00:08 Now, we've already seen how we can create a list to store our records.
  • 00:13 But it might be that you want to drill in on specific records within your list.
  • 00:20 Now I know what you're thinking, that won't we just cover this with sorting and
  • 00:24 filtering.
  • 00:25 And yes, you can use both sorting and
  • 00:27 filtering to extract specific records and organize your list.
  • 00:33 But what if we want something a little bit more permanent?
  • 00:36 Well, that is where list views come in.
  • 00:39 And the great thing is that if you created your list from a template, many of
  • 00:44 the templates within SharePoint come with their own set of different list views.
  • 00:49 Now, we'll add a caveat to that, not all of the templates contain lots and
  • 00:53 lots of different ways to view your list.
  • 00:56 But the majority of them do.
  • 00:58 If you're still a little bit confused as to what I'm talking about,
  • 01:02 let me show you an example.
  • 01:03 So, we're back in our training tasks list.
  • 01:07 And this is a list that's in the classic experience.
  • 01:10 And on the screen, I have two tasks, one is active and one is complete.
  • 01:15 And that is the one showing with a strikethrough.
  • 01:18 Now, if I want to view this list in a different way, how do I do that?
  • 01:23 Where do I go?
  • 01:24 Well, if you take a look just above the list,
  • 01:27 you can see it says all tasks calendar completed.
  • 01:31 And then I have three dots or an ellipses, and if I click that above the line,
  • 01:36 I have four more different ways that I can view this list.
  • 01:41 So, all of these are the list views that are included in the task template.
  • 01:47 So currently, I'm clicked on all tasks and that is showing me exactly that.
  • 01:52 It's showing me everything.
  • 01:54 But what about if I click on calendar?
  • 01:56 Well, if I click this, it's going to change the view.
  • 01:59 So now, I'm viewing my tasks displayed in a calendar format.
  • 02:04 Let's go back, if I click on completed,
  • 02:08 that's going to remove any completed tasks from the list.
  • 02:13 And when I say remove, I don't mean deleted.
  • 02:15 It just hides them from this particular view and only shows your active tasks.
  • 02:20 And if I click on the three ellipses,
  • 02:22 I have four more different views that I can use to take a look at this list.
  • 02:27 For example, if I click on Gantt chart,
  • 02:30 that's going to show me my tasks in Gantt chart view.
  • 02:33 And if anybody out there is used to using an application like Microsoft Project,
  • 02:37 this is going to look very familiar to you.
  • 02:40 So, all of these views are included in that tasks template.
  • 02:44 Let's take a look at another one of our lists that uses the modern experience as
  • 02:49 opposed to the classic.
  • 02:50 Because how you access your different views is very slightly different.
  • 02:55 So for this one, I'm going to jump across to my training contacts list.
  • 03:00 You can see we're in the modern experience.
  • 03:02 Now, where are my views in here?
  • 03:06 Well, if I take a look in the top right hand corner,
  • 03:08 you can see that it says all contacts.
  • 03:10 So, that is my view.
  • 03:13 If I click the drop down,
  • 03:14 this is going to show me any other views that come with this particular template.
  • 03:19 And this is one of the lists that doesn't have any
  • 03:22 other way to view this particular list.
  • 03:24 We have all contacts and that is about it.
  • 03:28 So if I did want to view this list in a different way,
  • 03:31 what I'd probably have to do here is create my own view.
  • 03:35 So again, if I found myself always wanting to filter for
  • 03:39 just specific records, maybe all of the contacts that work at training co.
  • 03:45 Instead of having to apply a filter each time, I could set it up as a view,
  • 03:49 which will then appear in this drop down.
  • 03:52 And I can simply click it to switch to that view.
  • 03:55 Now, I'm going to talk more about that later when we take a look at
  • 03:58 how we can create different lists views.
  • 04:00 But for the time being, just be aware that that is how you can toggle between
  • 04:04 different views, both in the classic and the modern layouts.

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