Lists in SharePoint work very much like a table in a database – columns are created to define each type of metadata that should be contained in the list and then records are added as rows in the list. Using the column (metadata) information, the list can filtered and sorted as needed. SharePoint ships with lots of built-in list templates that can be used to create a list such as Calendars, Tasks, Links, Contacts and more.

In addition to the available list templates to start from, you can also create a list from scratch using the custom list template that’s provided. For example, if you want to store information about your customers, departments, resellers etc, you can go ahead and create a new custom list to host that information. If you already have some information available to you in a Microsoft Excel workbook and just need to import the spreadsheet as a new list, there is a way to import a spreadsheet to create a new list as well.

Lists can grow fairly large with hundreds or thousands of rows of information. When SharePoint is retrieving the list data from the database, you might see a latency in displaying your records. SharePoint provides a way to throttle the performance of large lists to enhance the end user experience.

The Calendar list has a special feature with which you can roll-up multiple SharePoint or Outlook calendars. The benefit of this is so that you can overlay multiple calendars on top of each other and see all events from multiple sites in one place.