Publishing Lists to the SharePoint Site

The steps for publishing an Excel list to your SharePoint site are exceedingly straightforward:

1. Click any cell in the Excel list to display the List toolbar.
2. Click the List button on the List toolbar and then select Publish List on its pop-up menu.
   The Publish List to SharePoint Site - Step 1 of 2 dialog box opens.
3. Enter the URL of the SharePoint site in the Address combobox or, if you've published to the site previously, select the URL in the dropdown list.
4. Select the Link to the New SharePoint List check box.
   If you don't select this check box when you publish the list, you won't be able to synchronize the data in the list on the Web site with the list in your worksheet.
5. Enter the name for the list in the Name text box.
6. Enter a description of the list in the Description text box and then click Next.
7. In the Connect to Share dialog box, enter your user name and password in the appropriate boxes.
   You must be able to enter both your user ID and password to gain entrance to the SharePoint site. Also, in order to publish to the site, your user ID must have Administrator, Advanced Author, or Author status.
8. Click OK in the Connect to Share dialog box. The Publish List to SharePoint Site - 2 of 2 dialog box appears.
   When publishing a list to a SharePoint site, each column (field) of data must use one of the recognized data types: text, number, currency, or date. Prior to uploading the list to the Web site, Excel converts the data in your list into one of these types.
9. Verify that the fields in your list are being converted into the correct types. If the information is correct, click the Finish button to publish the list. If not, click Cancel and then make any necessary changes to the data entries in the incorrectly converted fields so that they will be correctly converted the next time you try to publish the list.
   Excel closes the Publish List to SharePoint Site - 2 of 2 dialog box, connects to the SharePoint site, and uploads each row (record) of data in the list. When the program finishes uploading the data, a Windows SharePoint Services alert dialog box appears, indicating that the list was successfully published.
10. If you want to view the list now, click the handy link to the page in the Windows SharePoint Services alert dialog box. If you want to view the list at a later time, click OK instead.

After you enter your ID and password again to gain entrance to the SharePoint site, the page with the published list appears in Internet Explorer When you first view the list on the Web site, it appears in Datasheet view, a view that mimics the Excel worksheet by showing gridlines for the columns and rows. The column headings (field names) in this view contain filtering drop-down buttons, which you can use to sort and filter the published list just as you would any data list in Excel. If you want to view the published list as a straight list without gridlines and filtering buttons, click the Show in Standard View button on the toolbar located above the list.

To return to the original worksheet in Excel, click the Microsoft Excel button on the Windows taskbar or press Alt+Tab. When you're finished comparing the lists, close the Internet Explorer window by clicking its Close button to return to Excel.

You can view the published list on the SharePoint site at any time after publishing it simply by selecting a cell in the list, clicking the List button on the List toolbar, and then selecting View List on Server on the pop-up menu.