Working With Announcements List In SharePoint

This article is the 39th part of my SharePoint series. Here are my previous articles.

1. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part One - Introduction
2. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Two - Web Application
3. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Three - Site Collections
4. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Four - Subsites
5. Learn SharePoint In Series – Part Five – SharePoint Lists
6. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Six - Power Of Versioning
7. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Seven - Lists Advanced Settings
8. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Eight - Validation Settings in List Settings
9. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Nine - Audience Targeting
10. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Ten - Rating Settings
11. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Eleven - Form Settings in List Settings
12. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twelve- Save list as a template in List Setting
13. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirteen- Permission Settings in List Settings
14. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Fourteen- Enterprise Metadata and Keywords
15. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Fifteen - Retention Policy Under Information Management
16. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Sixteen - RSS Settings in List Setting
17. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Seventeen - List Columns in SharePoint
18. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Eighteen - Multiple Lines Of Text Column Type in SharePoint
19. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Nineteen - Number and Choice Column Type in SharePoint
20. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty - Currency and Yes No Column types in SharePoint
21. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty One - Person or Group Column types in SharePoint
22. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty-Two - Date and Time Column types in SharePoint
23. Learn SharePoint In Series – Part Twenty-Three – Look Up Column Type in SharePoint
24. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty Four - Hyperlink or Picture Column Types in SharePoint
25. Learn SharePoint In Series -Part Twenty-Five - Calculated Column in SharePoint
26. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty-Six - Task Outcomes and External Data Column Type in SharePoint
27. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty-Seven - Introduction to Managed Metadata Column Types
28. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty-Eight - Introduction to Site Columns
29. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty Nine - Editing and Deleting Site Columns
30. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty - Column Reordering in SharePoint
31. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-One - Indexing in SharePoint Lists and Libraries
32. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Two - Introduction to SharePoint Views
33. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Three - Creating a SharePoint List View
34. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Four- Editing and Deleting a SharePoint List View
35. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Five - Standard View and Datasheet View
36. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Six - Gantt View in SharePoint

In the previous article, we have seen SharePoint contact lists in detail. In this article, we will explore SharePoint Announcement Lists in detail and try to understand the importance of an Announcement List and its usage. In this article, we will see the below points.

• What is the Announcement List
• Why not use a custom list instead of Announcement lists
• How to create Announcement lists

What is the Announcement list?

SharePoint provides an Announcement list template to maintain announcements related to any news or events in an organization. If we define an announcement, it always comes with an expiration date, like we have holiday news that expires once the holiday has passed. Similarly, if the announcement is for some events, it will also expire once the event has passed. SharePoint provides the special types of list templates known as Announcement List. You can create an Announcement List from this template.

Announcement list templates come with some predefined columns, such as TITLE, BODY, EXPIRES and other default columns.

• TITLE
  This column can be used to define the title of the announcement.
  
  
• BODY
  This is "Multiple Lines of Text" column type. It can contain the description of the announcement. As this is "Multiple Lines of Text" column type, it can be used to store the information in plain text, HTML tags, images, and many more.
  
  
• EXPIRES
  This is a date type column which can be used to store the expiration date of the announcement.

 

Apart from these columns, we can still create more columns to this announcement list based on the requirement.

Why not use a custom list instead of an announcement list?

If we take a look at the custom list and announcement list, there might arise a question of why should we use an announcement list. We can create a custom list and add these columns to that custom list and our announcement list is ready; so why should we use an announcement lists template?

Although, it is correct that we can use a custom list instead of the announcement list, but using announcement list, we have several non-functional benefits associated with it.

• Announcement list comes with different icons which help us to identify the announcements from the site contents. You can look at the example below.

 

Here, you can see that we can easily distinguish between Announcement lists and Custom lists just by looking at the icons.

 

• When we open the custom list, it has an option to add a new item, while in the case of Announcement list, we will have the link text as “new announcement”. This creates an impression on the users who use it.
• Apart from this, we have some useful predefined columns, such as BODY and EXPIRES. So, we do not have to create these columns manually again, to maintain the announcement list.

 

How to create an announcement list?

In order to create an announcement list, please follow the below-given steps.

Step 1

Open the Site Content page by clicking on the "Settings" icon and then clicking “Site Contents”.

Step 2

This will open the "Site Contents" page. Click on the “Add an app” icon from this screen.

Step 3

Search for the announcement into the search box and then click on the “Announcement” icon link.

Step 4

Enter the name of the announcement list and click on “Create”.

Once you click on the “Create” button, it will add the announcement list to the Site Contents with the given name.

Step 5

Now, you can open the list and enter the data into it. Use it where it is needed. Click on the “new announcement” link.

This will open the entry form. Just enter the details and click on the “Save” button.

Once you hit the “Save” button, the announcement will be added.

Following is the view form for the announcement list.

You can close the view announcement page and go back to the previous page by clicking on the “Close” button.

Summary

So, in this article, we have seen what announcement lists are, how we can create an announcement list, why it is better to use an announcement list for making an announcement over custom lists in our day to day life. Announcement lists also allow us to attach the attachments in items of the announcement lists.

If you have any question related to this article or any of the articles, do comment below.