"Group By" when you have more than one criteria in the column

[mrw2828]

Hello,

I have a list in sharepoint for which I have been asked to build a view that organizes the data by categories stored in one column, but some of the list items fall under more than one category and I would like them to appear in both categories without having to maintain two separate line items in the original sharepoint list. 

Here is an example list:

Vendor	Product	Location
Test Vendor1	Pants	Testlandia
Test Vendor2	Pants, Jackets	West Testlandia

I'd like to create a view that is grouped by Product with the group categories being 'Product: Pants' and 'Product: Jackets', which would then show Test Vendor1 and Test Vendor2 under 'Product: Pants', and Test Vendor2 under 'Product: Jackets'. Currently, when I group by product it gives me the group categories 'Product: Pants' and 'Product: Pants, Jackets', which is not what I'm looking for. 

In other words, I want every vendor that sells Pants to be listed under a 'Product: Pants' group and every vendor that sells Jackets to be listed under a 'Product: Jackets' group, ignoring the fact that some vendors may sell both.

Any guidance/advice would be appreciated!

[#2]

@mrw2828 This is a known limitation in SharePoint. SharePoint does not fully support grouping on multiple selection columns.

Documentation: Use grouping to modify a list or library view 

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[#3]

@ganeshsanap thanks for your reply. Are you aware of a different tool that would have this capability?

[#4]

@mrw2828 I too have struggled with this limitation, and my work around was to split the product column up into several columns with True/False or Yes/No values for each (e.g. Pants column, Jackets column), and group based on their values. Not sure that's a practicable solution though if you have lots of Product categories.

[#5]

@mrw2828 This is not possible using out of the box SharePoint and I am not aware of any 3rd party tool providing similar feature as per your requirements.

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[#6]

@ganeshsanap thanks - do you (or others) know if it is possible to link directly to a filtered view of a list, rather than sharing the list link that connects to the list in it's default view?

I'm imagining a scenario where I could have a link for the view that  that is filtered to show Test Vendor1 and Test Vendor2 under 'Product: Pants', and a link to a different view that is filtered to show Test Vendor2 under 'Product: Jackets'. 

[#7 · Accepted solution]

@mrw2828 you can create multiple Views, each showing something different (pants or jackets or whatever) and then share the link to each View on a page, as for example clickable buttons, tiles, etc. E.g. one button named 'Pants', another named 'Jackets', under a text heading of 'Products'.

Here's a good starting point for creating views:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y3CxqhO78M 

Note: Whatever you 'Save as", will concatenate to your URL and be the 'name of the view' link you share with your users, so keep it short and succinct (I always abbreviate to reduce total characters), and then after saving, navigate to List/Library Settings, scroll down to where all the views are listed, click on that view you just saved, and then when it opens in the editing page, you can rename ('View Name" field) to make it a friendly name that will appear in the View menu, and also see the direct URL link (Web address of this view, ending in .aspx). Here you can edit the details of the view, too, in the classic experience. Essentially, you are making the URL different to the Friendly name of each view, as the total number of characters in the URL can become problematic down the track, especially when/if item/filenames are lengthy. 

E.g. I might save as "ChinMed" or even "CM", then go back and change the 'View Name' field to "Chinese Medicine", so my URL is shorter by using "ChinMed" or "CM" as the view reference within the URL, but users will instead see "Chinese Medicine" in the View menu. Users don't care what the URL says.

You could save as 'Pants' and then go back and change the 'View Name" field to 'Product: Pants'. Then repeat for Jackets, and however many Products you've got.

Also note the View menu sorts all views alphabetically by name, so bear that in mind when coming up with a naming convention for your Friendly View names. You might want all Products to list above all Vendors, instead of having Products interspersed with Vendors in the View Menu, in which case prefixing all Friendly names with "Product: ..." will sort all the Products above anything prefixed with "Vendor:..." in your View menu. (as P comes before V).

For a decent overview on working with Views:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/community/creating-useful-views-in-lists-libraries

If working with larger Lists/Libraries (>5000 items/files), you'll need to consider the view thresholds:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/community/large-lists-large-libraries-in-sharepoint

[#8]

@mrw2828 When you filter a list data using "Filter by" option under each column header in list view, it generates a new browser URL to filtered view. You can use those URLs for sharing it with others.

For example: 

https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/mysite/Lists/mylist/AllItems.aspx?FilterField1=Product&FilterValue1=Pants&FilterType1=MultiChoice&FilterField2=Vendor&FilterValue2=Test%20Vendor1&FilterType2=Text

Notice FilterField names, FilterValue & FilterType in above URL, those values will change as per your column names, values and column types. Using this method you can generated URL for any filter combination.

If you have very few products/vendor combinations, you can also create a separate list view for each of the vendor / combination and use it's URL as well to share with others.

Check Microsoft official documentations: 

1. Create, change, or delete a view of a list or library 
2. Use filtering to modify a SharePoint view 

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[#9]

@Sourceress - thanks, appreciate all the info! I'll give this a try.

[#10]

@ganeshsanap - thanks for your help!