Hands-On Microsoft Lists: Create custom data models and improve the way data is organized using Lists in Microsoft 365

Brilliant introduction to a hidden but useful O365 app.

This is my go-to book for assistance with MS Lists, whilst MS Lists is fairly easy to use the more involved aspects such as sharing files and information extraction this guide takes you through step by step.

Microsoft Lists is an application in Microsoft 365 that people can use to track their work. I was interested to discover how Microsoft Lists compared with SharePoint Lists and Microsoft Dataverse and to learn its capabilities so I can decide if and when I could use Lists with the Power Platform.I often use Excel Online in OneDrive for Business for simple table data collection apps and use Dataverse for more complex data. Microsoft Lists appeared to me when it was announced as a more powerful replacement for SharePoint but I needed to find out more which is why I read this book. I was also interested to compare Microsoft Lists with Dataverse for Teams.The book is well structured, starting from basic concepts and building lists and then views and forms becoming progressively more detailed.The initial chapter describes the user interface for Lists in the Lists app, in SharePoint, and in the mobile app. The second chapter is all about creating a list and handles the issue of where the list is created either in OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, or Teams. I found this was well explained and sorted out the confusion I initially had about where Lists are stored. I do like that you can easily associate a colour and an icon with a list. Microsoft has standardized a lot between Lists and Dataverse so the method and options for adding columns to a list was very familiar. I didn't know that columns could include validation formulas or that calculated columns are supported.Creating a list from an Excel spreadsheet is probably one of the common activities I may use and this was explained very well in the book.Chapter 3 explained the core features of Lists. I do like the automatic generation of filters based on the data types defined for each column and the out-of-the-box gallery view. This makes a list very usable straight after creation of the list with no further customization. Rules were a surprise feature although I was confused between Automate with rules vs Power Automate and I do not know when I should use Rules over Power Automate.Microsoft Lists comes with a number of templates. I compared these templates with the equivalent templates in Dataverse for Teams. The Microsoft List templates are surprising useful, they do not contain the same level of functionality as in Dataverse for Teams but for many scenarios they are perfectly suitable.Chapter 4 discussed collaboration through sharing, comments, and rules. These features had been outlined in Chapter 3 with Chapter 4 adding detail. I would use this for reference when you need to use these features.Chapters 5, 6, and 7 discussed creating and customizing lists, views of list data, and forms. I thought this was well done in the book; explaining how to create and format views. Conditional formatting was something that I was not aware of and the book explained how to use conditional formatting well.I do think that although JSON formatting sections were comprehensive, I can't see myself using JSON. It might have helped giving some use cases for using JSON formatting, for example I think adding icons and handling time zones might be relevant but it was hard to tell. There were some examples for adding action buttons but this seemed excessively complex to achieve relatively simple results that are much easier to do with Power Apps.Chapter 8 discussed customizing the form for creating and editing data. The chapter then introduced using Power Apps to customize the form. Chapter 9 was probably the most interesting for me with using Microsoft Lists with the Power Platform. The book needs to explain how to use Person and Choice columns with the Power Platform. I also expected to see content on using Microsoft Lists as a data source for Canvas apps.I was really surprised to not see any mention of the Visualize the List with Power BI feature that automatically generates a really good report that you can publish back to the list and is then available for the command bar. This is a great feature that allows you quickly generate a summary set of visualizations with AI powered insights.In summary, the book is a good introduction to creating and configuring Microsoft Lists and for those who want to customize and administer Microsoft Lists. For my purposes it didn't answer the questions I had on using Microsoft Lists with the Power Platform and I would have liked to have a discussion on when to use the inbuilt capabilities of Microsoft Lists such as Views, Forms, and Rules against using the Power Platform.

I've been working with Lists in SharePoint for a long time and have also taught this in previous courses. Although Lists are fundamentally the same today in SharePoint Online they have also evolved to allow for much better usability and flows."Hands-On Microsoft Lists" is a book for those new to the concept of Lists and chapter 1-5 should teach you everything you need to know to add Lists as a tool in your toolbox to solve business scenarios. Chapter 6-8 are my favorite and will help even the seasoned List creator to level up in terms of how you can present list items to make them that much more useful and intuitive to work with.Once you have a need to adding business processes with state management like approvals and alert, chapter 9 takes your thru how to get started with Power Automate as the workflow engine on top of your Lists., or connect Lists as a data source into Power BI.If you're an admin then chapter 11 is for you to teach you how you can for example use PnP PowerShell to work with lists and list items, cmdlets I use every day as well in my work on Microsoft Search.The authors have not forgotten about developers, and chapter 11 takes you thru the dev options, similar to what is presented for power users in chapter 6-8, but with full flexibility.To summarize, if you are new to lists, a power user, an IT admin, a developer, or a consultant; you will all benefit from having this detailed book on Lists as reference material when you embark on your next List adventure.

First of all thank for working on this great idea and publishing a book on Microsoft Lists this is a must have book for this great tool of Microsoft.I will really recommend this book to anyone who would like to know more about Microsoft Lists as this book cover all the areas in-depth and the context is clear to understand, it shows and give you all the information about how and where to best use and utilize Microsoft Lists.Thanks from both the writers and the whole publishers team such a great book and best quality paper book.