Microsoft Lists Tutorial: Build a Project Tracking List Step by Step

Our marketing team kept project status in three spreadsheets and a long email thread, and nobody trusted any of them. They asked for one place where everyone could see who owns what, what’s late, and what’s blocked.

That’s exactly the job Microsoft Lists was made for. It gives you a shared, structured table that anyone on the team can update from the browser, Teams or a phone, with views, color rules and email alerts built in.

In this tutorial, we’ll build that tracker from a blank list, one click at a time. Think of it as a hands-on Microsoft Lists tutorial: you’ll create the list, add the right columns and sample items, then turn the same data into a board, a calendar, an overdue warning and an automatic alert.

Here’s what we’re building, a Marketing Projects list saved to our SPGuides site:

• All Items list view with Owner, Status, Priority, dates and a USD Budget column
• Status board that works like a Kanban board, one bucket per status
• Project calendar that shows each project from start to due date
• A red overdue due date and an email rule that fires when a project gets blocked

What Is Microsoft Lists?

Microsoft Lists is the Microsoft 365 app for tracking information in rows and columns: issues, assets, requests, events or projects. Every list is really a SharePoint list, so the one you build here also shows up on the site and works with everything in our SharePoint tutorials.

You can open the same list from the Lists app, from the SharePoint site, from a Teams tab or from the Lists mobile app for iPhone and Android. A list saved to My lists lives in your own storage and stays private until you share it. A list saved to a site belongs to that site and its members.

When you start a list, Lists asks what shape it should take first. We’ll pick List, but the same data can later show as a form, gallery, calendar or board.

Before You Start

You need a Microsoft 365 work or school account with Lists (it comes with plans that include SharePoint) and Edit rights on the site where you’ll save the list. We save ours to /sites/SPGuides. If you only need it for yourself, save it to My lists instead.

Here are the columns we’ll add. Title is built in; we rename it to Project, which is easier than hiding the SharePoint Title column later.

Column	Type	Notes
Project	Title (single line of text)	Built-in column, renamed
Owner	Person	One person per project
Status	Choice	Not started, In progress, Blocked, Completed
Priority	Choice	High, Medium, Low
Start Date	Date and time	Date only
Due Date	Date and time	Date only
Budget	Currency	USD, 0 decimal places

And these are the six sample rows. Everything after this point reuses the same list, so you can check your numbers against ours:

Project	Owner	Status	Priority	Start Date	Due Date	Budget
Website redesign	Sarah	In progress	High	10/05/2026	11/20/2026	$18,500
Vendor contract renewal	Miller	Blocked	High	10/12/2026	10/30/2026	$6,000
Customer survey	Sarah	Completed	Medium	09/08/2026	10/16/2026	$2,400
Holiday email campaign	Miller	In progress	Medium	11/02/2026	12/18/2026	$4,750
Intranet search cleanup	Bijay Kumar	Not started	Low	11/09/2026	12/11/2026	$1,200
New hire onboarding portal	Sarah	Not started	Medium	11/16/2026	12/31/2026	$3,200

The six budgets add up to $36,050. Two projects haven’t started, two are in progress, one is blocked and one is done.

Step 1: Open the Microsoft Lists App

First, we get to the Lists home page, where every list you own or recently opened shows up no matter which site it lives on.

1. Go to microsoft365.com and sign in with your work account.
2. Select the app launcher (the grid at the top left).
3. Select More apps > All apps > Lists. If you don’t see it, type Lists in the search box.
4. On the Lists home page, look at Favorites and Recent lists; star a list later to pin it here.

You can also start from the site itself: on a SharePoint site, New > List opens the same creation dialog. A third route, creating a new list by building a form, starts from the questions instead of the columns.

Checkpoint: you’re on the Lists home page and can see the + Create new button.

Step 2: Create a Blank List and Save It to Your Site

Now we create the list itself and decide where it lives, which is the one choice you can’t easily change later.

1. Select + Create new. The How would you like to start? dialog opens.
2. Under Create from blank, select List (the other tiles are Form, Gallery, Calendar and Board).

1. In Enter a name for your list, type Marketing Projects.
2. In Create in, choose the SPGuides site instead of My lists (so the whole team owns it).
3. Leave Show list in site navigation checked if you want a link in the site’s left menu.
4. Select Create.

There’s no description, color or icon on this screen. You can set them afterward from the list’s settings if you want the list easier to spot on the Lists home page.

Checkpoint: an empty Marketing Projects list opens with one column, Title, and a + Add column button.

Step 3: Add the Columns

Same Marketing Projects list, now we give it structure. Choosing the right column type matters more than anything else in the build, because views, rules and formatting all depend on it.

1. Select the Title column header > Column settings > Rename, type Project, and save.
2. Select + Add column > Person, name it Owner, and select Save.
3. Select + Add column > Choice, name it Status, and enter Not started, In progress, Blocked and Completed (Lists gives each choice a color pill you can change).
4. Add Priority the same way with High, Medium and Low.
5. Add Start Date and Due Date as Date and time columns with the time turned off.
6. Add Budget as a Currency column, set the format to $ (USD) and 0 decimal places.

Important: keep Status a single-choice column. Board view only groups by single-select Choice columns. If you’d like users to type their own value, the choice column with fill-in options works, but it makes board buckets messy.

Checkpoint: the header row reads Project, Owner, Status, Priority, Start Date, Due Date, Budget.

Step 4: Add Items (One at a Time or in Grid View)

With the columns in place, we add the six sample projects. There are two ways, and I use both.

1. For a single item, select + Add new item, fill in the form and select Save.
2. For several items, select Edit in grid view. You can type row by row like a spreadsheet or paste rows copied from Excel.
3. Select Exit grid view when you’re done (changes save as you go).

Grid view is the fastest way to fix many rows at once. If your team lives in Excel, you can also open the SharePoint list in Excel and work from there.

Checkpoint: All Items shows 6 projects, and the Budget column totals $36,050 if you add a Sum in the column’s Totals menu.

Step 5: Turn the List Into a Board View

Same six items, now as cards. A board view is where Lists starts to feel like a project management tool.

1. Open the view switcher at the top right (it says All Items) and select Create new view.
2. In View name, type Status board.
3. Under Show as, select Board.
4. In Organize board by, choose Status.
5. Leave Make this a public view checked so the whole team sees it, then select Create.

Each choice becomes a bucket (Lists also adds an Unassigned items bucket for items with no status), and dragging a card to another bucket updates its Status. For more board settings, such as reordering buckets and choosing card fields, see how to create a board view in a SharePoint list.

Checkpoint: the board shows Unassigned items (0), Not started (2), In progress (2), Blocked (1) and Completed (1). Each card shows the Owner, Project, Status, Priority and Start Date.

Step 6: Add a Calendar View for Deadlines

The board answers “what’s the status?” A calendar answers “what’s due this month?” and uses the same two date columns we added in Step 3.

1. Select the view switcher > Create new view.
2. Name it Project calendar and select Calendar under Show as.
3. Under Default layout, pick Month (Week, Work week and Day are the other choices).
4. Set Start date on calendar to Start Date and End date on calendar to Due Date.
5. Select Create.

Note: you can’t change a view’s type after you create it, so make a new view instead of editing this one. If you need a timeline with bars, the SharePoint Gantt chart view for a list covers that.

Checkpoint: November 2026 shows bars running from each Start Date to its Due Date, such as Website redesign and Holiday email campaign; busy days collapse the rest into a +N more link.

Step 7: Highlight Overdue Projects With Column Formatting

Next, we make late work jump out. Column formatting changes how a value looks, never the data itself, and anyone who can manage views can add it.

1. Select the Due Date column header > Column settings > Format this column. The Format Due Date column pane opens on the Format columns tab.
2. Select Advanced mode at the bottom of the pane.
3. Replace the JSON with the code below, select Preview, then Save.

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/v2/column-formatting.schema.json",
  "elmType": "div",
  "txtContent": "@currentField",
  "style": {
    "color": "=if([$Due_x0020_Date] < @now && [$Status] != 'Completed', '#a4262c', '')",
    "font-weight": "=if([$Due_x0020_Date] < @now && [$Status] != 'Completed', '600', '')"
  }
}

The rule turns the date dark red and bold when it’s in the past and the project isn’t Completed. A column named “Due Date” has the internal name Due_x0020_Date, because spaces are stored as _x0020_. That’s why the JSON uses that name.

For simple color pills you don’t need JSON at all: the Conditional formatting option in the same pane lets you build rules with drop-downs. JSON pays off when you want the same trick on forms, like these SharePoint list form formatting JSON examples.

Checkpoint: on 11/02/2026 only Vendor contract renewal (due 10/30/2026, Blocked) shows a red, bold date. Customer survey was due earlier but it’s Completed, so it stays normal.

Step 8: Create a Rule That Emails the Owner

A blocked project shouldn’t wait for the weekly meeting. Rules send an email when something changes, with no Power Automate flow needed.

1. On the list’s command bar, select Integrate > Rules (the same menu holds Flows, Quick steps, Approvals and Power Apps).
2. Select Create a rule.
3. Pick the An item is modified tile. The others are A new item is created, An item is deleted and A date approaches.
4. Select each underlined part so the sentence reads: when an item is modified, if Status changes and the new value is Blocked, send an email to Owner. A custom message is optional.
5. Select Create.

Rules email individual people or a Person column, not a group address, and they don’t work on multi-line text columns. You need at least Contribute permission to manage them. When you need approvals or Teams messages, move up to a flow like this one that can send a customized email when a list item is added.

Checkpoint: Manage rules lists the new rule with its toggle set to On. A list can hold up to 15 rules.

Step 9: Share the List With Your Team

Because we saved the list to the SPGuides site, site members already have access. Sharing is for people outside that group, such as a stakeholder who only needs to look.

1. Select Share at the top right of the list.
2. Type the person’s name or email.
3. Open the permission menu and pick Can edit list, Can edit items or Can view.
4. Add a short message and select Share, or use Copy link to paste the link in a chat.

By default only owners can share, though admins can let editors share too. To show each person only their own projects, add a view that uses [Me], as in this guide to a SharePoint list view filtered by current user.

Test the Marketing Projects List

Time for a real run. On 11/02/2026 I opened the Status board and moved Intranet search cleanup from Not started to Blocked.

• The card moved, and the board now reads Not started (1), In progress (2), Blocked (2), Completed (1).
• The rule fired, and the owner, Bijay Kumar, got an email notification about the Status change.
• The Due Date for Intranet search cleanup stayed black, because 12/11/2026 is still in the future.
• In All Items, the Budget total didn’t change: still $36,050.

Then I moved the card back to Not started so the sample matches the tables above.

Variations: Other Ways to Create a Microsoft List

Blank lists teach you the most, but they’re not always the fastest start. The How would you like to start? dialog offers other routes: Import from Excel, CSV or an existing list, and Templates (From Microsoft or From your organization).

Start from	Best when	Watch out for
Excel	Your data is already in a workbook	Data must be an Excel table (Home > Format as Table), up to 5,000 rows; an uploaded file is kept in the site’s Site Assets library
CSV	You exported data from another system	Check each column type on the customize screen before you select Create
Existing list	You want the same columns and views as another list	Copies the structure and formatting, not the items
Template	You want a ready-made tracker	Templates include Asset manager, Content scheduler, Employee onboarding, Event itinerary, Issue tracker, Recruitment tracker, Travel requests and Work tracker

For our tracker, the Work tracker template comes close: it already has Work item, Category, Progress, Priority, Start date, Due date and Assigned to columns, plus two built-in rules.

After an Excel import, review every column type, because a text column that should be a Choice won’t work on a board. If you’d rather script it, you can also create a list from Excel with Power Automate.

Variations: Use the Same List in a Teams Channel

Most of our team works in Teams all day, so we pinned Marketing Projects to the marketing channel. It’s the same list, not a copy.

1. In the channel, select + (Add a tab).
2. Search for and select Lists, then select Save.
3. Select Add an existing list, pick Marketing Projects (or paste its link).

Only lists stored on a SharePoint site can be added, so personal My lists don’t appear. Removing the tab later doesn’t delete the list. Teams and Lists use the same permissions as the site, which is a good reason to keep team trackers on the site, as explained in our Dataverse vs SharePoint list comparison when you outgrow it.

Make It Production-Ready

• Plan for size. A list can hold up to 30 million items, but views get slow and can fail past 5,000 items. Index the columns you filter on and read up on the list view threshold error before you import years of data.
• Keep Status values fixed. Renaming a choice breaks the board buckets, the rule and the formatting at the same time, so agree on the values first.
• Turn on version history. In List settings > Versioning settings, keep versions so you can see who changed a status and roll it back.
• Use site permissions, not item-by-item sharing. Sharing single items is fine once or twice, but it quickly gets hard to audit.

Troubleshooting

• Board isn’t offered for Status: the column allows multiple selections. Edit the column and turn off multiple selections, or create a new single-choice column.
• The JSON shows no color: the internal column name doesn’t match. Check it in the URL of the column’s settings page (Field= in the address bar) and use that name.
• Upload file is grayed out when importing Excel: you don’t have permission to create lists on that site. Ask the site owner for Edit or Owner rights.
• The rule never emails anyone: the Owner column is empty for that item, or the person changed it back before the rule ran. Make Owner required.

Important: deleting a list sends it to the site’s recycle bin with all its views and rules, so double-check the name before you confirm.

Where to Take It Next

Once the tracker runs for a few weeks, three upgrades pay off. Build a phone-friendly front end as a canvas app from a SharePoint list.

Add approvals and weekly digests with the flows in our Power Automate tutorials. And send a monthly snapshot to leadership when you export list items to Excel with Power Automate.

If you’d like guided practice on lists, views and flows, our SharePoint training course walks through more builds like this one.

Ready to go deeper with your lists? These hands-on guides pick up where this build stops:

• SharePoint List View: Create, Change & Delete a View
• How to Create SharePoint List Views using Power Automate [4 Different View Examples]
• SharePoint Calculated Column [Complete Tutorial]
• How to Manage Alerts in SharePoint Online [List & Library]

Frequently Asked Questions