Microsoft Lists Tracker

Microsoft Lists Tracker

Overview

Microsoft Lists is a structured data tracking app built on SharePoint Lists. It provides a flexible grid/form interface for managing tabular data — issue logs, hiring pipelines, inventory trackers, project status boards, and any other process that needs rows, columns, and views. Unlike Planner (which is task-focused) or SharePoint document libraries (which are file-focused), Lists is designed for structured data records with custom columns, validation, and filtering.

Under the hood, every Microsoft List is a SharePoint List. The Graph API endpoints are the same SharePoint Sites/Lists endpoints. Lists created in the Microsoft Lists app appear in the parent SharePoint site, and vice versa.

Best fit: Small teams (20 people or fewer) that need lightweight process tracking without a full database or project management tool.

Documentation Coverage Audit

Use /lists-coverage-audit <site-id> <list-id> to validate feature coverage against Microsoft Graph and SharePoint REST documentation.

Coverage reports must separate Graph-supported operations from SharePoint REST/UI-only functionality, especially for advanced list view management.

Base URL

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0

All endpoints below are relative to this base URL.

API Endpoints

Sites

Resolve a site ID from URL: If the user has a SharePoint URL like https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Operations, resolve it:

GET /sites/contoso.sharepoint.com:/sites/Operations

The response id field (format: contoso.sharepoint.com,<guid>,<guid>) is used in all subsequent list operations.

Lists

Create list body:

{
  "displayName": "Issue Tracker",
  "list": {
    "template": "genericList"
  }
}

Available template values for custom lists: genericList. Other values (documentLibrary, survey, etc.) create different list types.

Columns

Items

Create item body:

{
  "fields": {
    "Title": "Onboard new developer",
    "Status": "Not Started",
    "Owner": "Alex Kim",
    "DueDate": "2026-03-20",
    "Priority": "High"
  }
}

Update item fields (partial update):

{
  "Status": "In Progress",
  "PercentComplete": 25
}

Content Types

Add content type body:

{
  "contentType": {
    "@odata.id": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/{site-id}/contentTypes/{contentType-id}"
  }
}

Views (List Views)

List views are not fully manageable through Graph API v1.0, but you can read them:

For advanced view management (custom views with filters and sorting), use the SharePoint REST API or configure views through the SharePoint/Lists UI. The Graph API supports item-level filtering via OData query parameters as an alternative.

Column Type Reference

Text

{
  "name": "Description",
  "text": {
    "allowMultipleLines": false,
    "appendChangesToExistingText": false,
    "linesForEditing": 0,
    "maxLength": 255
  }
}

For multi-line text, set allowMultipleLines: true and increase maxLength up to 63999.

Number

{
  "name": "Quantity",
  "number": {
    "decimalPlaces": "none",
    "displayAs": "number",
    "minimum": 0,
    "maximum": 999999
  }
}

decimalPlaces options: "automatic", "none", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five".

Choice

{
  "name": "Status",
  "choice": {
    "allowTextEntry": false,
    "choices": ["Open", "In Progress", "Resolved", "Closed"],
    "displayAs": "dropDownMenu"
  }
}

displayAs options: "checkBoxes", "dropDownMenu", "radioButtons".

DateTime

{
  "name": "DueDate",
  "dateTime": {
    "displayAs": "default",
    "format": "dateOnly"
  }
}

format options: "dateOnly", "dateTime".

Boolean

{
  "name": "IsActive",
  "boolean": {}
}

Boolean columns have no additional configuration. Values are true or false.

PersonOrGroup

{
  "name": "AssignedTo",
  "personOrGroup": {
    "allowMultipleSelection": false,
    "chooseFromType": "peopleOnly",
    "displayAs": "nameWithPresence"
  }
}

chooseFromType options: "peopleAndGroups", "peopleOnly".

When setting person fields on items, use the LookupId suffix:

{ "AssignedToLookupId": 12 }

Currency

{
  "name": "Budget",
  "currency": {
    "locale": "en-US"
  }
}

Common locale values: "en-US", "en-GB", "de-DE", "fr-FR", "ja-JP".

HyperlinkOrPicture

{
  "name": "DocumentLink",
  "hyperlinkOrPicture": {
    "isPicture": false
  }
}

Values are stored as "URL, Description" format:

{ "DocumentLink": "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/docs/spec.pdf, Requirements Spec" }

Calculated

{
  "name": "TotalCost",
  "calculated": {
    "formula": "=[Quantity]*[UnitCost]",
    "outputType": "number"
  }
}

outputType options: "boolean", "currency", "dateTime", "number", "text".

OData Filter Syntax

List items support OData query parameters for filtering, sorting, and selecting fields.

Filter operators

Logical operators

String functions

Sorting

$orderby=fields/DueDate asc
$orderby=fields/Priority desc,fields/DueDate asc

Pagination

$top=50

Follow @odata.nextLink in the response for subsequent pages.

Field selection

$expand=fields($select=Title,Status,Priority,DueDate)

Common Templates for Small Teams

Issue Tracker

Columns: Title (built-in), Status (choice: Open/In Progress/Resolved/Closed), Priority (choice: Critical/High/Medium/Low), AssignedTo (person), Category (choice: Bug/Feature Request/Improvement/Question), DueDate (dateOnly), Description (multi-line text), IsBlocking (boolean).

Use case: Bug tracking, support ticket triage, facility maintenance requests.

Project Tracker

Columns: Title (built-in), Status (choice: Not Started/In Progress/On Hold/Completed), Owner (person), StartDate (dateOnly), DueDate (dateOnly), PercentComplete (number 0-100), Budget (currency), Notes (multi-line text).

Use case: Small project portfolio, initiative tracking, quarterly goal progress.

Inventory Register

Columns: Title (built-in), SKU (text), Category (choice: Hardware/Software/Office Supplies/Equipment), Quantity (number), UnitCost (currency), Location (text), ReorderLevel (number), LastRestocked (dateOnly), InStock (boolean).

Use case: IT asset tracking, office supply management, equipment checkout.

Hiring Pipeline

Columns: Title (built-in, used for candidate name), Position (text), Stage (choice: Applied/Phone Screen/Interview/Offer/Hired/Rejected), Recruiter (person), InterviewDate (dateTime), Source (choice: LinkedIn/Referral/Job Board/Direct), Notes (multi-line text), OfferAmount (currency).

Use case: Recruiting tracker for small teams without a full ATS.

Event Log

Columns: Title (built-in, used for event summary), EventDate (dateTime), Severity (choice: Info/Warning/Error/Critical), System (text), ReportedBy (person), Resolution (multi-line text), Resolved (boolean).

Use case: Incident logs, change management records, audit trails.

Authentication Notes

Microsoft Lists uses the SharePoint Sites permissions model. The following delegated permissions are required:

Application permissions (Sites.Read.All, Sites.ReadWrite.All as application) can be used for daemon/background scenarios but grant access to all sites in the tenant. For least-privilege access, use delegated permissions with Sites.Selected and grant per-site access via the SharePoint admin center or PowerShell.

Token acquisition

Using @azure/identity with client credentials:

const { ClientSecretCredential } = require("@azure/identity");
const { Client } = require("@microsoft/microsoft-graph-client");
const { TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider } = require("@microsoft/microsoft-graph-client/authProviders/azureTokenCredentials");

const credential = new ClientSecretCredential(tenantId, clientId, clientSecret);
const authProvider = new TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider(credential, {
  scopes: ["https://graph.microsoft.com/.default"]
});

const graphClient = Client.initWithMiddleware({ authProvider });

Rate limiting

Graph API enforces per-app and per-tenant throttling. If a request returns HTTP 429:

• Read the Retry-After header (seconds).
• Wait that duration before retrying.
• Use exponential backoff for repeated 429s.

Best Practices

• Use genericList as the template for all custom lists. Other templates create specialized list types that may not support custom columns.
• Always use internal column names (the name property) in API calls, not display names. Internal names are set at creation time and do not change when the column is renamed in the UI.
• For person columns, resolve the SharePoint user lookup ID from the "User Information List" hidden list, not the Azure AD object ID.
• Use $expand=fields when fetching items to get custom field values. Without this, only system metadata is returned.
• Use $select on the fields expand to reduce payload size: ?expand=fields($select=Title,Status,DueDate).
• Batch column creation requests when building a new list to reduce round trips. Graph API supports JSON batching via POST /$batch.
• Set maxLength on text columns to enforce data quality. SharePoint defaults to 255 characters for single-line text.
• Use calculated columns for derived values (totals, concatenations) instead of computing them client-side.
• For lists with more than 5000 items, be aware of the SharePoint list view threshold. Indexed columns and narrow filters are required to avoid throttled queries.

Reference: SharePoint Reserved Column Names

These internal names are reserved and cannot be used for custom columns:

ID, Title, Created, Modified, Author, Editor, _UIVersionString, Attachments, ContentType, FileSystemObjectType, ServerRedirectedEmbedUrl.

The Title column is always created automatically and serves as the primary display column. It can be renamed in the UI but its internal name remains Title.

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