Connect SharePoint Online Lists

If you've connected SharePoint Online libraries to QorusDocs, then you already know that you can create SharePoint Online library content sources that point to multiple libraries, or even to different folders in different libraries. 

When it comes to SharePoint Online lists, things are quite different.

Lists house content and data in tabular format, a lot like Excel. The 'content' that you may want to re-use in your documents is not contained within the body of a file, but rather within a list column. There's no concept of a file name or a file title either in a list, just the data contained within its rows and columns. Plus, different lists can have vastly different column structures. 

And so, for all these reasons, SharePoint Online list content sources can only point to one list at a time. You can however create as many SharePoint Online list content sources as you would like, one for each list. 

Before you can connect any SharePoint Online libraries or lists to QorusDocs, you need to have at least 'Contribute' rights to these places in SharePoint Online, and you also need to belong to the QorusDocs Admin role. 

Here are the main steps when creating a new SharePoint Online list content source: 

1. Add a new SharePoint Online list content source
2. Copy and paste the link to your SharePoint Online site in the connector settings
3. Set any advanced options (optional)
4. Choose the list you'd like to connect to
5. Configure the list settings:
   • The columns QorusDocs should search
   • The columns QorusDocs should use to create search filters
   • The column QorusDocs should use for displaying titles in the search return
   • The column that contains the content that QorusDocs should insert when you click on 'insert'

1. Add a new SharePoint Online list content source

First, you'll need to be logged into Hub Central. You can access the login page by visiting the following link: https://www.qorushub.com/

In Hub Central, go to the 'Content Sources' page under 'Manage'. Then click on 'Add', and then on 'SharePoint Online List': 

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2. Copy and paste the link to your SharePoint Online site in the connector settings

On the next page, give your SharePoint Online list content source a name, and then copy and paste the URL of your SharePoint site into the 'Site' textbox: 

If you're not sure where to get the URL of your SharePoint site from, visit the 'home' page of your SharePoint site, and copy and paste the URL directly from your browser's address bar:  

When you're ready and if you don't plan on setting any advanced options, click on the 'Next' button (bottom right) to go to the next step.

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3. Set any advanced options (optional)

Click on 'Show Advanced Options' to see the options available. These are all completely optional. If you'd prefer to skip ahead to the next step, click here.

Search location image

The only advanced option available for SharePoint Online list content sources is to set a 'search location image'.

By default, QorusDocs will display the SharePoint logo next to SharePoint Online content sources in the Search pane. You can however add your own custom images for each content source, making it easier for users differentiate between content sources, especially if you have many connected to your QorusDocs. 

To do that, click on the box indicated below: 

Then, select an image from your computer. We recommend an image that is 50 pixels by 50 pixels for the best results: 

When you're ready, click 'Next' to proceed to the next step.

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4. Choose the list you'd like to connect to

QorusDocs will search for lists within your SharePoint site, and present those to you next. Here you'll need to select the list you'd like to connect to this content source. We'll be using the 'Sales FAQs' list for this example: 

When you're ready, click on 'Next'. 

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5. Configure the list settings

As you probably know, there are many different types of columns that can be set up within a list, including choice, number, currency, text, hyperlink, dates, and much more. 

QorusDocs can work with the following three types of columns: 

• Single line of text (also known as a 'Text' column)
• Multiple lines of text (also known as a 'Note' column)
• Managed Metadata (also known as a 'Taxonomy' column)

If this is all new to you, or you'd like to learn more about these column types, there's a great Microsoft Support article that explains it all right here.

In the 'List Settings' page, we'll to tell QorusDocs what to do with the all compatible list columns it has found within the selected list: 

If we take a look at this list in SharePoint, you'll see that the list column names in this view correspond to the ones we're seeing on this screen: 

Next we'll need to configure: 

• The columns QorusDocs should search
• The columns QorusDocs should use to create search filters
• The column QorusDocs should use for displaying titles in the search return
• The column that contains the content that QorusDocs should insert when you click on 'insert'

The columns QorusDocs should search

To specify the columns that QorusDocs should search, use the checkboxes that appear under the heading 'Search'. You can make all the columns searchable if you wish, or you can get very granular and specify just a few:

The columns QorusDocs should use to create search filters

To specify the columns that QorusDocs should use as search filters, use the checkboxes below the 'Filter' heading. 

With SPO list content sources, QorusDocs can use both single line of text (or simply 'text') columns as filters, as well as managed metadata (or 'taxonomy') columns as filters.  You'll notice that it's not possible to choose a multiple lines of text (or 'note') column here. That's because, as the name implies, these columns can contain whole paragraphs of text, and could be quite long - making them an impractical choice for search filters. 

The column QorusDocs should use for displaying titles in the search return

With lists, we're working with data contained within a tabular structure, and not with actual files. For this reason, we'll have to tell QorusDocs which column to use in lieu of a file title, when displaying search results. 

Here you can only pick one, and we'd recommend choosing a column that makes it easy to identify what the list content is about. 

The column that contains the content that QorusDocs should insert when you click on 'insert'

Then, the last thing to do, is tell QorusDocs which of these columns contains the body of content. You can only pick one:

In this example, the 'Boilerplate Text' column is the one that contains the 'answers' in this FAQ list. When clicking on 'insert' in the QorusDocs Add-ins, it's the contents of this column that we'll want to use: 

And that's it. When you're done, click on 'Finish'. Click here to learn more about how Search works in QorusDocs, and here to learn about the different insert options available. 

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