Views are an integral part of the SharePoint landscape. List and Libraries in SharePoint have views that help in data organization, grouping, assimilation, etc. Features like filtering and sorting data also make views a very useful component. They make the data interactive and help businesses save their time and improve processes.
Views are of two types in terms of audience,
- Personal - Visible only to the logged in user
- Public- Visible to everyone (with access to list)
In this article we will talk about the various types of views and their styles, what is the ideal scenario to use them.
To begin with, we have a simple and basic list - TV Show Times consisting of 4 columns.
To create a view, click using the navigation List Ribbon - List/Library - Create View and select the view that best suits your business needs. This article will be depicting the various views and styles available for any list.
There are 5 different types of views that can be used,
- Standard View
- Datasheet View
- Calendar View
- Gantt View
- Custom View in SharePoint Designer
Further, Standard View has 8 different styles. The relational hierarchy and a brief description of the various types of views are as follows,
Standard View
As the name suggests, this is the standard and the most widely used view in SharePoint. Data is shown in tabular format.
Standard views can be stylized in 8 different modes as shown in the image below. This setting can be accessed via List Ribbon - Create View/Modify View - Style
Below is the pictorial descriptions of how the different styles look in the list – TV Show Times
- Basic Table
- Boxed, no labels
- Boxed
- Newsletter
- Newsletter, no lines
- Shaded
- Preview Pane
- Default
Datasheet View
This view is the excel alternative for entering/updating data in SharePoint. This view is particularly useful when the data is in bulk. This view also supports copy-paste from Excel sheets. Any list can be viewed in its datasheet mode by clicking on “Datasheet View” in SharePoint 2010 and “Quick Edit” in SharePoint 2013 onwards.
Once data entry/update is complete, you can click on “Stop” editing this list, and the changes will be saved.
Calendar View
This view shows data within a calendar. This is useful when data has much emphasis on dates and needs to be viewed on a monthly/weekly or daily basis. To create this view follow List Ribbon - List/Library - Create View - Calendar View - Save
The following details are mandatory while creating the view,
- Start Date and End Date
- Select a column as the title for – month, week and day view.
Gantt View
Gantt chart provides a graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks. It is useful in project management. Gantt views can also be created in SharePoint. Settings to be followed is same as before - List Ribbon - List/Library - Create View - Gantt View - Save
The following details are mandatory while creating the view,
- A column needs to be set as the “Title”
- Start Date and End Date