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Renaming columns -> new name not showing for site members
Hi community,
I noticed that in a recent created SharePoint Online site, that when I rename columns, I (as creator) see the new names, but every other site member see the original column names.
What I did:
Because SharePoint stores column names that contain spaces as "_x0020_", which is very annoying when trying to read data from the back-end. I create new list- and content type columns in lowercase format without spaces. When I'm done creating content types and columns, I rename the columns to a friendly name and create the views.
I searched online, but I can't find similar topics. Any idea or help is appreciated.
Regards,
Paul
What I see (View)What I see (List settings)What they see (View)What they see (List settings)
Update July 2020:
I still had this issue with new sites and almost gave up on troubleshooting. I had a brainstorm with another SharePoint minded person and it became clear that the language template might be a thing.
When you visit a website, the language in which the browser is set determines the language in which the content is displayed. If the website offers content based on language of course. With modern browsers you have the option to support multiple languages, like spell check and browser interface. My native language is Dutch, but I set my browser to English to read Microsoft Docs in English (the machine translation is absolutely horrible).
Now back to SharePoint. I create a site, make content types and columns, create libraries and lists and all that in my English browser. Most of my colleagues all have browsers with their interface set to Dutch. And here's where things go wrong. All Dutch visitors see the columns in their old ("ugly") name. When I change the user's UI language to English, *poof* all columns are in the correct "fancy" names.
So in conclusion, I have to rename all columns in two different languages, and more if we want to support other languages for our visitors as well....
20 Replies
I think, I ran into another strange symptom of this bug. The problem itself is the same. I create new columns without blanks and special characters, then rename them afterwords. Never had an issue with that, up until this one new list. It surfaces in three different ways:
1. Like all the others here, new colums are shown only with their first name. Renaming is not displayed
2. Now it gets strange. I also renamed the very first column "Title", then renamed it again, as i repurposed that column. Guess what, it sticks to the first rename now all the time.
3. Really strange. Same for the list name. Left out the blank initially, renamed it with blank. Gets only displayed without blank.
So testing with other colleagues might also hint into the language/regional settings corner. I am German working on an english laptop. But my fellow Germans on german laptops have the same issue. My IT support from India does not have the issue. Couldn´t get a real pattern here.
BUT what I could figure out: Once I clear the browser cache, I get all the renamed column names. Once I hit refresh, all the initial names are back. Also, when opening the list, for a very very brief moment the correct names are displayed, then instantly overwritten with the initial name. Same behavior on Edge and Firefox. So it is somehow down to the Cache, but I have no better means then clearing it. Any idea?- After some testing with our IT support it all pointed to the cache. Some more digging here let me to thread: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/sharepoint/sharepoint-caching-problems-with-lists/m-p/2870798
Disabling Offline Availability of the client is doing the trick for me.eis33: Good find, unfortunately the OneDrive settings that are referred to in that post, are not available in Windows 11 clients (where OneDrive is a part of the OS instead of a stand-alone app)
I spent several hours on the phone with Microsoft to look into the problem and we manage to solve it. We looked at a number of solutions:
Solution 1: Forcing and executing column indexing
- Go to the list settings, click on advanced settings, turn on "index non-standard views", click on "re-index list".
- This can take up to 24 hours, depending on the size of the site, region of the tenant and how often this job is running.
Solution 2: Creating a search scheme
- Make sure the list contains the content types.
- Go to the site settings > management of the site collection and select "search scheme". Click on "crawled properties".
- Search for properties starting with "ows_".
- If the indexing works and the list contains data, the search with results should return. If not, you can add search properties manually.
- Check the operation of the search by searching for a known value that is already in the list.
This option re-indexes columns. Check if other members of this site see the new column names.
Solution 3: Check site features
When I create a new site in SharePoint I turn off unnecessary features by default. Features like "create new pages", "site notepad", "social features", and some more unnecessary features.Apparently, column names are not updated for other site members and visitors if a feature (I suspect the "create new pages" option) is not enabled. In the end, this was the solution for me.
Update July 2020:
I still had this issue with new sites and almost gave up on troubleshooting. I had a brainstorm with another SharePoint minded person and it became clear that the language template might be a thing.
When you visit a website, the language in which the browser is set determines the language in which the content is displayed. If the website offers content based on language of course. With modern browsers you have the option to support multiple languages, like spell check and browser interface. My native language is Dutch, but I set my browser to English to read Microsoft Docs in English (the machine translation is absolutely horrible).
Now back to SharePoint. I create a site, make content types and columns, create libraries and lists and all that in my English browser. Most of my colleagues all have browsers with their interface set to Dutch. And here's where things go wrong. All Dutch visitors see the columns in their old ("ugly") name. When I change the user's UI language to English, *poof* all columns are in the correct "fancy" names.
So in conclusion, I have to rename all columns in two different languages, and more if we want to support other languages for our visitors as well....
- Wow, I had the exact same issue and this solved it 🙂 Many thanks
- Wow..... that's random... thanks for coming back and posting the solution!
- Since you have content type management on you might want to go check in the content type and name them there. I think this has a separate name as well but don’t have PC to check. Otherwise I wonder if it’s a cache thing. Hold shift and refresh the page. Also the user view is the view settings not list. I would say try creating a new view from scratch making it public and see if it shows correct.
Thanks ChrisWebbTech.
I tried clearing browser and the shift F5 with a user. I also tried inviting a new user, the same results there. Going to try out your suggestion to change the column name in the content type and to create a new view.
- Changing column names in site settings > content type editor did not work either, same for creating a new view. So far I never had this issue with new sites in SPO.
Next on the list of things to try: creating a template of the list and see what happens when I create a new list.
