Creating a List
Lists can be created from scratch or from an Excel spreadsheet and accessed from Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Sharepoint, or the Microsoft Lists app on the Office 365 website. The functionality is the same regardless of where you create the list. Below are instructions for creating a list in each application.
- Open the MS Lists app.
- Click New List
- Choose from the options to create a list.
- Give your list a name, description, color, and icon
- Give your list a name and a description. In the MS Lists app, you will also choose a color and icon.
- Under Save to, either:
- Leave the default My lists to save the list to your OneDrive account
- Use the dropdown to choose an existing Sharepoint site to save the list in.
- Click Create.
- Open Microsoft Teams
- Navigate to the Team and Channel that you’d like the list in.
- Note: This list will be connected to and accessed only from this channel and Sharepoint, not the other channels in this Team.
- At the top of the channel, click the + button
- Search for Lists, then click Lists
- Click Save
- Click Create a List
- Choose from the options to create a list.
- Log in to Sharepoint and navigate to your site.
- In the menu on the main site page, click +New to expand the dropdown.
- Click List.
- Choose from the options to create a list.
This can be done in any app, whether you are using the MS Lists app online, MS Teams, or MS Sharepoint.
First: Prepare your Excel Spreadsheet
- Open your spreadsheet in Excel.
- Select all of your data. Don’t select empty rows or columns – only cells with data in them.
- On a Mac, hold shift, then hold the command key, then press the down arrow to select all of the vertical data; then (still holding down the shift and command keys), press the right arrow key.
- On Windows, hold shift, then hold the control key, then press the down arrow to select all of the vertical data; then (still holding down the shift and control keys), press the right arrow key.
- In the Home ribbon, choose Format as Table.
- Select any table style.
- When asked where the data for your table is, you should be given the first and last row and column values holding data. Click OK.
- Your data will be reformatted as a table.
- For any columns that hold only dates, numbers, currency, or percentages, make sure the column is set to that data type.
- Let’s walk through an example of a column of dates:
- Highlight that column by clicking the column letter.
- In the Home ribbon, click General.
- In the dropdown that appears, select the appropriate data type. For our example, we will choose Short Date.
- The column type updates.
- Let’s walk through an example of a column of dates:
- Repeat this for all columns that are not simply plain text.
Second, Import the Excel spreadsheet to Microsoft Lists
- Follow the steps in the appropriate section above for Sharepoint, MS Teams, or the MS Lists app to navigate to the List Creation screen.
- Under Create a list, choose From Excel.
- Choose Upload File.
- Lists will show your spreadsheet as it will be imported. Before you click Next, check the column data type above each column. For example, Start Date here is listed as a number, not a date.
- Above any column with the wrong data type listed above that column, click the dropdown and choose the correct data type.
- Click Next
- Give your list a name and a description. In the MS Lists app, you will also choose a color and icon.
- Click Create.