Beginning SharePoint® 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007

2.1. What Is a List?

Virtually everything stored in SharePoint is in some form of a list. Lists can contain a variety of content, from customer contact information to recipes for your favorite dishes. They are similar to databases, and provide reports and views of the information stored in them. They are very easy to construct and require no special tools or knowledge, which makes them an ideal information store for most organizations and teams.

2.1.1. Understanding List Elements

Lists have item, fields, and views. Items and fields correspond to the rows and columns that you see on grid layout that you often see in spreadsheets or databases. Views present list data in a friendlier format that acts very similar to a report.

• Items: An item, or record, is a row in a database. For example, for a list that stores information on customers, each customer may have a unique item in the list, which is also called the customer row or customer record.

• Fields: A field is a column in a database. You may also see a column referred to as metadata, which really contains the details of a row's information. A customer item in a list, for example, contains the phone number, physical address, billing address, and email address.

• Views: A single list can have multiple views. You create a view to address a user's informational needs relating to list data. A view displays a subset of information from the list, for example customers who have been added during a specific time period. You may also create ...