Confused about Microsoft Lists

[GraemeNZ]

Today I found out about Microsoft Lists. Curious man that I am, I dug around and followed hyperlinks and found my way to a whole lot of information that told me... basically nothing.

Essentially MS Lists allows me to create a list, and share it with other people so we can all see what is going on. Isn't that exactly what a SharePoint list is? Or an Excel list which is loaded to a SharePoint or Teams site?

When I opened Lists to see if I could learn more, it suggested lists I could create based on existing lists I had already created, and when I did one of these I found that Microsoft Lists imported the list from the existing location, took away all the conditional formatting that had already been set up, and suggested to me that I could improve my list by adding conditional formatting. Frankly, I don't get it...

Or am I missing something? What was the driver/user need that drove this development? Is Lists going to be the solution to all those niggling problems with To-Do and Planner, and actually allow users to assign a task to another user? If this is the case, then why doesn't the (un)helpful information about Lists actually say that?

Do you think users will be confused about this lack of distinction between an App List, a SharePoint List or a new Microsoft List? What is the secret about Microsoft Lists that makes it a good tool to use?

See: https://resources.techcommunity.microsoft.com/microsoft-lists/#:~:text=Microsoft%20Lists%20is%20a%20.... 

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @GraemeNZ -  these Lists are an extension/improvement of SharePoint Lists. You'll find the same experience when creating a new list from a SharePoint Site. The Lists as an app provides a central dashboard to access all lists you have permissions to and a way to create new lists that you can keep for personal use or save to a site. Soon, there's also supposed to be an iOS app and offline access.

I agree that it has caused a lot of confusion for orgs and end users. I think to get all the additional functionality like Rules, conditional formatting and form editing that it had to be kind of pulled away from just SharePoint to its own app. After embracing Planner for the last couple years and still finding it lacking, I'm really appreciating the flexibility of Lists.

[#3]

As for what lists can do in comparison to To-Do and Planner, it's far more flexible for data and information tracking. I would sooner liken Lists to Excel with task management features and a more natural connectivity to the Power Platform.

An example would be collecting data with Forms or Power Apps(or just using the embedded form) and having the data populate in a pre-formatted Lists view. Within the List, you can have Power Automate tasks that trigger when you change the status of a list item. For example, an email that goes out once you set a list item status to complete. Or, you can access the list to manually trigger PA tasks/approvals.

I can think of plenty of scenarios where you can make business solutions where Lists can be your document storage, task/project management, mini-relationship manager, and database for Power BI, all-in-one.

[#4]

Hi. Thanks @Kelly_Edinger for your explanation. I can now see that having a central 'dashboard' of all my lists is helpful. I hadn't realised that all the lists I have used automatically populate on that dashboard. This will definitely help our users find things.
I've been exploring Planner and finding it lacking, so haven't made a push to implementing it - (I've just had a play with some concepts within a small team). Would you mind elaborating on the issues you've had with Planner, and how you've found Lists has been better?
The main impediment for our organisation with Planner is that dates for tasks always revert to US format, and that's going to be a huge point of confusion for our managers who are not very good with IT. If they can see it working in a way which is intuitive, helpful and saves time, they are pretty good at adopting new processes, but otherwise...

[#5]

Hi @Cody_XIV. Thanks for your reply.
If I understand it correctly, can't you already do all this within a SharePoint List? So what's the advantage of the Lists app?

[#6]

Hi @GraemeNZ - the issues that we've run into with Planner is that we can't add our own fields. For project management, we like to be able to add a people picker field for the PM. With the new calendar view in Lists, it's easier to see the whole month, where Planners calendar view leaves a lot to be desired.  It's also easier to add granular/specific reminder dates and emails with Lists, and you can embed Lists on any page in a Comms Site, where Planner can only be embedded onto a Teams site page. Hope that helps!

[#7]

@GraemeNZ 

The structure and visual approach of Microsoft Lists and how it works with Teams, is much more accessible and understandable to newer users. It really allows SharePoint Lists to "come out" of SharePoint and shine on its own as a tool to rival Asana or Wrike. A lot of people are seeing it mostly as a task manager, but it's super important to remember/inform people that it's information tracking. Potentially all data in an organization can fall under the category information.

[#8]

@Kelly_Edinger do you have any suggestions to bring in color coding for categories on Calendar view of a List. I'm trying to create an organizational calendar using Lists and the calendar view is great but would like to see color coding.

[#9]

Hi @SusanMcClements - sadly no. I'm hoping that MSFT will make the move to include our conditional formatting in the calendar view, but so far I don't see it on the roadmap. The traditional calendar with calendar overlays still exist, but who knows for how long. I wish I had a better answer for you. Maybe someone else in the community can jump on this thread with advice for both of us.

[#10]

The iOS app is now out for Lists, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-lists/id1530637363

/Josh