Learn why Microsoft Lists is better than Excel to capture tabular data from multiple persons in a secure manner, without sending attachments and manual copy paste. In the earlier blog post we saw a detailed coverage of how to use Lists. This article highlights 22 benefits of using Lists instead of Excel.
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Activity |
What happens in Excel |
What happens in Lists |
|
Data entry Columns |
Only Number, Date and Text types |
15 data type: Text, long text, images, location, persons, choice, multiple choice, lookup, currency, hyperlink |
|
Add validation to reduce data entry errors |
Limited validations. |
Column level and row level validations Lots of Excel-like functions available. |
|
Mandatory columns |
Not possible |
Each column can be mandatory or optional. |
|
Calculated columns |
Difficult to implement |
Easily possible. Just define the formula. |
|
Share with multiple people |
Need to send files – too many copies to manage |
Share link. Edit or read only. |
|
Stop sharing? |
Not possible if you send the file as attachment. |
Can stop sharing anytime. |
|
Data from multiple people |
Each person sends a separate file. |
Single list – multiple people can enter data at the same time. |
|
Copy Paste to combine data |
Lot of copy paste needed to combine / consolidate data |
No copy paste needed. |
|
Prevent people from editing each other’s data |
Share separate files. Requires manual copy paste to combine data. |
Easy! Just change two settings and prevent people from seeing and editing each other’s data. |
|
Column level security |
Not possible. |
Create a view with desired
columns. Use Audience Targeting to specify who can see / edit which view. |
|
Lookup from other lists |
VLOOKUP works. But making that column read-only is difficult. |
Lookup is a column
type. Refer to another list,
create dropdown. Reuse common lists. |
|
Change from edit to view |
Not possible |
Easily possible. |
|
Export to Excel |
Not required. It is in Excel! |
Available – creates Excel
file |
|
When data changes what happens? |
Nothing! Manually combine data repeatedly. |
Just refresh. You can even auto-refresh while opening the Excel file. |
|
Trigger actions when data is added |
Programming needed. |
Easily possible using Power Automate. Actions with 300+ apps. |
|
Notification when data changes |
Programming needed. |
Enable notifications and choose the event. |
|
Create Reports |
Pivot table – static |
Pivot Tables, Power BI or any other BI tool which supports SharePoint list. Auto-refresh |
|
Versioning |
Excel versions |
Field level versioning with audit trail |
|
Custom views |
Sort and filter only |
Many views can be instantly created: Group, Filter, Sort, Calendar View, Thumbnail View and more. |
|
Custom permissions |
Not possible |
Add only – no delete. Custom permissions can be created using SharePoint security. |
|
Reminders |
Not possible |
Set custom reminders based upon any date column. |
|
Protection |
Protecting unwanted areas of file is difficult. |
Create non-editable column using calculated columns. |
