It’s been awhile but I am back to continue on my SharePoint Basics series for SharePoint.  Let’s see where we are:

• Part 1 – What is SharePoint?
• Part 2 – Creating Content
• Part 3- Working with Views (this post)

Back in Part 2, I touched on SharePoint Views briefly in the context of creating content.  In today’s post I want to go a lot deeper with views and show you how to work with them which will help any SharePoint user work more effectively and efficiently.  Again, if you have a good handle on what views are and just need the how, you can skip down to the Steps for SharePoint 2010 or Steps for SharePoint 2013 headings below.

What Are Views in SharePoint?

As I mentioned before, SharePoint content is stored in lists or libraries of varying types.  Almost every one of those lists or libraries uses a view to display the content.  SharePoint views define what and how you see content in a list or library.  Is it sorted in descending order by the time the document was created, or is it grouped by a category field?  Is some content filtered out by a priority field?  Does one group of users need to see some fields in the list and others need to see fewer fields?  All those things are what views do – they control how users see and can interact with the content. 

I’ll just briefly mention a note on folders.  Views are an organization tool, and they can replace subfolders in many cases, but not in all cases.  I will discuss columns and metadata in another post, but just know that a view MAY be able to replace folders in some cases. 

View Audience

SharePoint views are classified first by the audience who uses the view:

• Personal Views
• Are views that are created by the user.
• Can only be changed by the user who created it.
• Are visible only by the user who created it.
• System/Public Views
• Are created by site owners or administrators.
• Can only be changed by site owners or administrators.
• Are visible to all users.

The view audience is set when creating the view via a setting as a power user / administrator.

Types of Views

Beyond the audience, views can be of a few different starting types.  Which one you choose will depend on how you want you to see and work with the data in that view from the start.

• Standard View
• This is typically the default and is the standard way of looking at data.
• Calendar View
• Renders a calendar style view.
• Access View
• Opens Microsoft Access to create data from the list.
• Datasheet View
• Used when your data needs to be updated frequently or in bulk; renders a spreadsheet-style format.
• Gantt View
• Think Microsoft Project, renders tasks or other data in a Gantt chart style.
• Custom View in SharePoint Designer
• Create more advanced view styling with SharePoint Designer.

Some lists have certain views set to default. For example a Calendar list has the calendar view as default, but you can create a calendar view for any list that has date values on it.  More often that not, typically there is an existing view that is mostly what you want that just needs to be tweaked.  In that case, you can “start from an existing view” and modify as needed which really saves time. 

Who Can Create Views?

The following minimum permissions are required by a user to create views:

Any user that has the contribute permission (can add, edit or delete content) can create a PERSONAL view.  You have to have at least edit permission (SharePoint 2013) or design (SharePoint 2010) to create a PUBLIC view. 

Attention Site Owners / Power Users

This next little section applies to folks with administrative privilege, so if that’s not you, you can skip to Use Cases.  Who can create views can be customized via permission levels.  While permissions are out of scope for this article, let me explain how they relate to views.  Permission levels can be assigned like the following:

• Read – basic read only access.
• Contribute – Read plus create, modify, delete items.
• Edit – Contribute plus manage lists (SharePoint 2013 only).
• Design – Contribute plus create, modify, delete list and settings, approval.
• Full Control – Has all permissions.

These basic permissions are made up of individual very granular permissions.  For example, the Contribute permission level is made of these permissions:

• Add Items.
• Edit Items.
• Delete Items.
• Delete Versions.
• Browse Directories.
• Edit Personal User Information.
• Manage Personal Views.
• Add/Remove Personal Web Parts.
• Update Personal Web Parts.

It’s this specific Manage Personal Views permission that provides the ability for users to create personal views.  This allows you to say a user can have Contribute, but not create personal views by creating a custom permission level.  I will discuss this in a future basics blog.  You can review a matrix of these permissions and levels here for SharePoint 2010 and here for SharePoint 2013. 

Use Cases

Before we look at the how, I thought it would be good to give a few examples of how views can be useful.  One of the worst things you can do is have a list or library with tons of content, and not spend 5 extra minutes and tweak the views to make it easy to work with!

Task Lists

Task lists by nature come with multiple views:

With any view, it’s powerful to use My type views to help dynamically target content to the logged in user.  If so, you can set that view to be default so when Bob goes to the task list, he sees his tasks.  If Jennifer goes to the list, she only sees her tasks (I show this down in the Dynamic Tokens in View Filters section below).  Task lists also use field types like priority and category that can be grouped by or sorted, as well as date fields that yield a lot of possibilities.  So if you want to see tasks past their due date, or tasks due within 2 days that are marked important...  No problem! 

Document Libraries

In document libraries, files have file sizes, so you could sort or filter to only show files that are at least 1 meg in size.  Or if you have a lot of columns, you could make a summary (showed only basic fields) and full details views (that shows many views).  Maybe you just want to see documents that the current user uploaded (My).  If these are highly managed documents, views could be configured to show documents that need to be reviewed or are expiring within X days. 

Issue Lists

Like task lists, issues lists have similar fields and are great candidates for defining some views.  We use issues lists at C5 Insight to track client issues.  Here’s one example that has 2 groupings, and some sorts:

All of these cases are extremely easy and would take minutes to configure.  I cannot stress enough that I believe views are almost as important as the lists/libraries themselves.  Does it take a user more than 3 major clicks to find the content they’re looking for?  You likely need to tweak the view!  Let’s take a look at how that is done.

Steps – SharePoint 2010

Switch to Different Views / Accessing Views

You can see and switch views in a few different ways.

• From the Page Breadcrumb (Browse ribbon tab):

• From the List ribbon tab in Current View dropdown:

Creating Views

You can create a view via:

• Page breadcrumb:

• Create view ribbon button on List ribbon tab

Starting a view from either way will load the exact same page. 

1. Decide how you want to create your view from an existing view, or start a fresh one.  Click the appropriate option.
2. Give the view a name.
3. If you are an admin, check if the view will be a public or personal view.  If you are not an admin, you will not have this option.
4. Define which columns show in the view by clicking the checkbox next to the name.  Set the order of the columns to show in the view (left to right) by setting the position number. 
1. For example, if a field you want to move to the far left is at position 10, pick its position dropdown, and choose 2.  That will shift all other columns down below it.
2. NOTE – Setting the order here sets it for the VIEW.  This is different than the field order when you create an item or view an item.  That is column order in the content type, which I will talk about in another blog.
5. Set the sort order and field(s).
6. Set any filters needed (choose a column to filter on, the operator, and the value it is checked against).
1. For example, let’s say you have a column that contains a list of States, and you want a view to only show list items that have a value of North Carolina.  You would choose the State field, is equal to for the operator, and North Carolina for the value.
7. Tabular view – if you want people to be able to choose multiple items for bulk operations.
8. Set any group by fields.  You can define two levels, and choose if they are expanded or collapsed by default.  This view is collapsed by default:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. In Totals, you can choose to do minimal math for a column.  You can show a count of basic fields or other math if the field is a number (Sum, Average, Maximum, Minimum, Std Deviation, Variance).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Choose a view style (some can be very useful depending on your content, try them out!).
11. Set folder options.  Useful if you have a document library with folders, and you want a view that is flattened (without folders).
12. Set Item Limit.  Views by default limit to only show items in batches of 30 items at a time.  You can either increase this per page number, or say that only shows X amount and that’s all.  This is nice when you want to show the top 5 of something, the 10 most recent, etc. 
1. CAUTION – if your list is very large (say 2,000 or higher), I would recommend you don’t try to show ALL the items in one view.  This can cause performance issues so try to use filters to narrow down the items.
13. Set any mobile view settings.  I almost never change this.
14. When done, click Ok.

Customizing Views

You can customize / modify a view via:

• Page Breadcrumb
• Switch to the view that you want to modify.
• Click on the view dropdown (the list of views), and click Modify this view.

• Modify View button on the List ribbon tab:

Once this screen opens, the options are identical to when the view was created (with the exception that the web address for the view is now visible).  Set your options as desired and click Ok. 

Steps – SharePoint 2013

Switch to Different Views / Accessing Views

In SharePoint 2013, accessing views is a little different.

• Directly above the list content:

• From the List ribbon tab in Current View dropdown:

Creating Views

You can create a view via:

• Directly above the list content from ellipsis dropdown menu:

• Create View button on the List ribbon tab:

Starting a view from either method will load the exact same page. 

1. Decide how you want to create your view from an existing view, or start a fresh one. Click the appropriate option.
2. Give the view a name.
3. If you are an admin, check if the view will be a public or personal view.  If you are not an admin, you will not have this option.
4. Define which columns show in the view by clicking the checkbox next to the name.  Set the order of the columns to show in the view (left to right) by setting the position number. 
1. For example, if a field you want to move to the far left is at position 10, pick its position dropdown, and choose 2.  That will shift all other columns down below it.
2. NOTE – Setting the order here sets it for the VIEW.  This is different than the field order when you create an item or view an item.  That is column order in the content type, which I will talk about in another blog.
5. Set the sort order and field(s).
6. Set any filters needed (choose a column to filter on, the operator, and the value it is checked against).
1. For example, let’s say you have a column that contains a list of States, and you want a view to only show list items that have a value of North Carolina.  You would choose the State field, is equal to for the operator, and North Carolina for the value.
7. Tabular view – if you want people to be able to choose multiple items for bulk operations.
8. Set any group by fields.  You can define two levels, and choose if they are expanded or collapsed by default.  This view is collapsed by default:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. In Totals, you can choose to do minimal math for a column.  You can show a count of basic fields or other math if the field is a number (Sum, Average, Maximum, Minimum, Std Deviation, Variance).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Choose a view style (some can be very useful depending on your content, try them out!).
11. Set folder options.  Useful if you have a document library with folders, and you want a view that is flattened (without folders).
12. Set Item Limit.  Views by default limit to only show items in batches of 30 items at a time.  You can either increase this per page number, or say that only shows X amount and that’s all.  This is nice when you want to show the top 5 of something, the 10 most recent, etc. 
1. CAUTION – if your list is very large (say 2,000 or higher), I would recommend if at all possible you don’t try to show ALL the items in one view.  This can cause performance issues.
13. Set any mobile view settings.  I almost never change this.
14. When done, click Ok.

Customizing Views

You can customize / modify a view via:

• Directly above the list content from ellipsis dropdown menu:
• Open the view you want to modify by clicking on its name.
• Click the ellipsis next to list of views, and click Modify this view.

• Modify View button on the List ribbon tab:

Once this screen opens, the options are identical to when the view was created (with the exception that the web address for the view is now visible).  Set your options as desired and click Ok. 

Important Fields to Know

There are certain columns you might see when creating or editing a view, that might not be obvious as to what they are, or what they can be used for.  I've tried to document them below.  They are the same between both SharePoint platforms.

• ID column
• A built-in unique identifier column that can’t be changed that auto-increments every time an item is created.  Ensures some value in the list is unique.
• 
• Columns with (linked to item) and (linked to item with edit menu)
• This is typically the Title column, but not always.  Basically this column is automatically hyperlinked to open the item record when clicked.  The difference is whether or not the column provides the edit menu (a dropdown next to the column or via ellipsis).  Here’s an example with both columns side by side.  They are both the Account name column, but the one on on the left has the edit menu, the one of the right does not.  It typically is nice to include the dropdown, but depending on your needs you might not want to.  Clicking on the name in either column will load its properties:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Created, Created By, Modified, Modified By fields
• These are system fields that are automatically populated by SharePoint based on certain actions.  They represent:
• Created – the date/time when the item was created or file was initially uploaded.
• Created by – the name of the user who created the item or uploaded the file.
• Modified – the date/time when the item was last modified or file was last changed.
• Modified by – the name of the user who last modified the item or changed the file.
• These fields can be used in views / filters.
• Type (icon linked to document)
• This column will render the file icon for documents (Word, Excel, PDF, etc.).
• Attachments
• Just like in Outlook, this shows a paperclip icon in a list for items that have files attached to them.
• File size
• For document libraries, will show the size of the file in kb.
• Rating (0-5)
• Shows the 0-5 starts rating control in the view for each item.
• Number of Ratings
• Shows the numeric ratings average for the item.
• Version
• Shows the current version of the item (used with the Versioning settings like major or major and minor versions).

Using Dynamic Tokens in View Filters

As I mentioned above, you can create views that are dynamic either to the user or a date.  How is that done?  There are two built-in values allowed that I call dynamic tokens:

• [Me]
• Filters by the chosen field against the the current logged on user.
• [Today]
• Filters by the chosen field against today’s date.

Examples

I’m going to use an Accounts list I have created, loaded with multiple columns with different types of data like name, address, city, state, country, category, industry, number of employees, revenue, etc.  By default it’s a big list of hundreds of records:

Recently Updated Accounts

Let’s create a view using [Today] to only show the most recently updated accounts.  First, let’s sort by Modified descending then by Account Name ascending:

In the view filter settings, we can specify a formula using Modified:

What we’re saying is only show accounts that were modified within the last 2 days from today, and sort that list by the change date with newest at the top, then sort that by the Account Name in ascending order. 

Wholesale Standard Accounts

We have a group of sales folks that only care about accounts whose industry = Wholesale, and whose Category = Standard.  Easy, just create a view like before and set the following for the filter:

My Accounts

Let’s say we have a field in our account list called Salesperson that shows which sales person owns that account, and I have assigned a few accounts to me.  Create your view, and set your filter:

Now we only see 4 accounts:

I hope this helps you to think of all the different ways you can put the power of views to work!

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