List With Content Type And Additional Columns In SharePoint

Scenario

You have 2 lists of few common columns & few unique columns. In this case we may choose not to use content types.

But content type is advisable in this scenario too.

• Add common columns to content type
• Add specific columns to list level

Solution

The following would be the simplest solution in this case.

1. Create a content type with common columns.
   
2. Attach the content type to both lists.
   
3. Remove the default content type of both lists.
   
4. Add custom columns to each list at list level.

Steps

Go to Site Settings, then Content Types

Create a content type with the following columns:

• Title
• PAN Number

Create a new list named Tax. Attach the content type to the list.

Add a new item with values for Title & PAN Number.



You can see the item displayed in the following screenshot:



Now go to the List Settings, then Add a new column named Age. Now use the edit form to modify the previous item. You can see the Age column appears here.



You can go to the List View settings to show the Age column in view mode too.


Create the second list, add the content type and create another column. Here the same content type is reused for common columns & the custom columns are managed at list level.

Note

Using content type for common scenario would save lot of time managing column modifications, behavior etc.

Summary

In this article we have explored a real world scenario of content types.