About custom Lists tools

Note: This article has done its job, and will be retiring soon. To prevent "Page not found" woes, we're removing links we know about. If you've created links to this page, please remove them, and together we'll keep the web connected.

The Lists Tool provides an open-ended custom tool environment that allows workspace members to build and analyze a collection of data items. The custom form design in a Lists Tool is created and updated via Microsoft Office InfoPath. When you first add a Lists Tool to a workspace, you click Start Here to enter the Designer, import form templates designed in InfoPath, and add other design elements such as views.

Every Lists tool begins with an idea for a custom lists application. A Lists tool designer creates the custom tool, based on a set of requirements, using a combination of Microsoft Office InfoPath (used for creating form template solutions) and the Lists tool's Designer environment.

Who uses a Lists Tool?

Typically, there are two types of Lists tool users:

1. Lists tool designers. Lists tool designers add a Lists tool to a Groove workspace, enter the Designer, create and import form templates solutions via Microsoft InfoPath, and then other design features in the Lists tool Designer, such as views and style transforms. Once a Lists tool contains at least one form and one view, it is ready for contributors (invited workspace members) to add items using the forms in the design, and then sort and analyze them in one or more data views.

   A Lists tool designer might invite people to become members of the workspace in which the Lists tool is originally created, and in which he or she is also a member. Alternatively, a Lists tool designer might save the custom Lists tool as a new tool template to be distributed or made public.

2. Lists tool users. Lists tool users include anyone invited to a workspace that contains a Lists tool created in the Lists tool Designer. Lists tool users add data items by filling out the custom form templates. For example, employees in a workgroup might be invited to a workspace with a custom "Status Report" tool, that is, a workspace that contains a Lists tool with a form designed for filling out status reports.