There are 4 primary ways to get information from a SharePoint List or library (this also includes Announcement lists, Calendars, and Blogs):

• Visit the site with a Browser
• Create an Email Alert for a List or Library (this article)
• Sync’ing or Connecting a List or Library with Outlook
• Setting up a RSS Feed on a List

Email Alerts can be setup on any Document Library, List, Calendar, Discussion Board, Blog or even on an individual webpage in SharePoint.

Creating an Alert on a List or Library

1. First go to the area you would like to create an Alert for, in this example we will setup an alert on the Shared Documents library.

2. Click on the far right content type tab (this could be; Library, List, Calendar, Page, etc), click on Alert Me, choose Set Alert on this …….


3. For the Alert Title, type in a descriptive name that has both the site and list/library name.  This will help you know where the alert is coming from by just looking at the email subject.

4. Send Alerts To this should have your name listed, if you have elevated privileges (Site Owners) then you can enroll others in alerts as well.
** For Site Owners: Only individuals can be enrolled in alerts, you cannot enroll a SharePoint group for Alerts**

5. Change Type allows you to specify your alerting criteria.  For Discussion Boards and Blogs, the New Items are added works best so you don’t get alerted when someone corrects a spelling error on post.  For Document Libraries and Lists, usually you want to be notified of All Changes.  All these settings can also be modified later.

6. Send Alerts for These Changes gives you several different options, Anything changes or Someone changes an item that appears in the following view are probably the two most commonly used filters.  The view option will only appear if more than one view has been created for the list/library and the Views do not have filter criteria for [My] or [Today] in them.  If you see a view that is a better fit for your needs than Anything changes, choose that.

7. Choose how often you want to be alerted and click the OK button.

NOTE: You will receive a confirmation email with the details for the alert you have just created.  Each alert email you receive will have a link that will allow you manage (edit/delete) any alerts you have on that specific site.

There are 4 primary ways to get information from a SharePoint List or library (this also includes Announcement lists and Calendars):

• Visit the site with a Browser
• Create an Email Alert for that List or Library
• Sync’ing or Connecting a List or Library with Outlook (this article)
• Setting up a RSS Feed on a List

Syncing or Connecting Lists to Outlook allows you to view and even edit some types of list items in Outlook instead of having to go the site.  This method will also give you offline access to the lists or libraries in case of a site downtime.  This functionality requires the following:

• That you are using a PC, this functionality currently does not work with Mac’s.
• That .PST files are allowed on your PC/in your company, if you get an error message when trying to connect your company might be preventing .PST files.
• That you have Outlook 2007 or later installed.
• That you have Contribute access or higher on the list or library.  If you only have Read access you will not be able to connect to most lists.
• You are not trying to connect to a Blog Site or a Links list, neither of these types allow connecting to Office or Outlook

**Connecting Document Libraries to outlook is usually best for offline Viewing.  If you are going to edit the document in outlook, it’s usually best to check it out in SharePoint first.  If you make changes to a document while offline, the SharePoint library will be updated the next time you connect.  This will overwrite any changes made to the document while you were offline.

Calendars: Syncing or setting up a “Connect to Outlook” connection

Syncing Calendars compared to connecting lists and libraries are a little bit different so they each have their own section in this article.

1.  Go the the Calendar you want to Sync, click on the Calendar tab, Click on the Connect to Outlook icon.

2. You will probably get a security prompt, click the Allow button.

3.  The SharePoint calendar will now be available in Outlook and can viewed alongside your calendar:

 ** Please be aware that not all the fields in your item will be mapped to the Outlook Calendar. **The Title, Location, Description, Attachment, and Start & End Times are the only fields mapped to the Outlook Calendar I believe.  Although you can choose for a different field to display as the Title in SharePoint Calendars, the actual Title field is what will be mapped to Outlook.One workaround is using a Workflow, you can append any custom values in your event to the description field.  So for example, lets say your Bridge Calendar event has a Category Column.  Using the workflow, you can append:

“Category: ABC Team Meeting” To the end of your description field.  These will make that information visible in your connected Outlook Calendar.  ​

Lists and Libraries: Syncing or Setting up a Connection to Outlook

1.  Go to the List or Library, Click on either the List or Library tab, click on the Connect to Outlook icon.

2.  If you get a security prompt, click the Allow button.

3.  Sometimes you even get a second security prompt, click Allow again.  These prompts only happen when creating the connection.

4.  It may take several minutes to Sync up, but the SharePoint list or Library should be added to your Outlook panel:

*You can even reply to Discussion board posts, complete issues or action item list items, and open documents from these views.

More information on SharePoint to Outlook connections: 

Information provided by Microsoft: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-foundation-help/synchronize-sharepoint-2010-content-with-outlook-2010-HA101881295.aspx

In some instances you don’t want number fields to display with comma’s in SharePoint views. Unfortunately there is no setting to not display comma’s on number fields like there is with excel. Instead you need to use a calculated field to display your number field.

For this example I’m going to display a number column (Alias) in a calculated field (Alias Number).
Create a calculated field, and for the formula type:
=text(

Then insert your number column (this step is important, you can’t just paste the formula because SharePoint doesn’t pick up the field mapping)

then type:
,”0″)

Your formula should display something like this: =text(Alias,”0″)

Choose a number field, with 0 decimal places and click OK.

This should display your number column without the commas while retaining the benefits of using a number field (field validation & sorting)

*You could use a text field instead of a number field which will display the numbers as they are entered and not insert the comma’s. The problem with this solution is that users will no longer be forced to enter numbers into the field and sorting will not always work correctly. For example:
Number field sort:
100
101
102
1001
10001

Text field Sort:
100
10001
1001
101
102