Best Approach Sharepoint Lists

[cschonhaut]

Our company is brand new to Sharepoint/O365 and still getting a feel for all the tools. I am looking for some advice/guidance on the best approach to using lists.

My goal is this: I want to be able to create multiple list "templates", and these templates need to be able to be "pulled"/duplicated and then customized for different purposes. It basically would just be a list of a bunch of different things that need to be double-checked on a particular project. I want these items to be checkable, so you know when they have been completed. Ideally, it would be nice for them to be able to be assigned to a person and maybe have a due date. Another key is that you should be able to add items to the list too. 

Does anybody have any recommendations for me on the best way to proceed? 

[#2]

Hi @cschonhaut with the modern SharePoint Online experience you can't create a list and save it as a template. In the classic experience there is still an option in Site Settings to save a list as a template but then you can't create a new one with it. There is a uservoice request for saving a list as a template at https://sharepoint.uservoice.com/forums/329214-sites-and-collaboration/suggestions/36681880-save-lis...

So you'll need to create your lists manually each time and to be honest it's often just as quick to do that as to create it as we did in the old days from a template and the list then needed customization.

But one thing I noticed from your post was that although everything you want can be done with a SharePoint list (with assignment and reminder emails handled by Flow), you can also do what you want with Planner, also one of the Office 365 apps, so have a look at that.

Rob
Los Gallardos

[#3]

Take a look at PnP Templates and Site Scripts + Site Designs that are intended to cover the scenario you are describing here

[#4]

@RobElliott thank you so much for the info, I appreciate it. Does Planner allow for you to create list templates? This is an essential part of the process, it will take too long to create these lists manually each time. 

[#5]

@cschonhaut no it doesn't, sorry.

Rob
Los Gallardos

[#6]

Does anyone know of any tools using Sharepoint / O365 that DO allow for list templates?

[#7]

Hi @cschonhaut , I've just seen that Microsoft have started rolling out the ability to create lists from other lists which will copy over everything, including custom metadata, but not content. This is very good news and looks to be just what you need. The blog post is at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-SharePoint-Blog/Create-SharePoint-lists-from-Excel-...

Rob
Los Gallardos

[#8]

@cschonhaut  another option is to create a Team from an existing Team, when you do this, you can choose which items from an existing Team you want included, https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-a-team-from-an-existing-team-f41a759b-3101-4af6-93bd.... 

Planner Plans include the ability to assign Tasks to people so you may want to use this instead of SPO lists. 

The choice of tool(s) depends on the requirements, which frequently change and/or are incomplete so I don't recommend trying to get everything all figured out in advance. Do some pilot projects and get a lot of different people involved to get multiple perspectives. The tools change frequently as new features are added, so try not to get overly committed to one approach.