SharePoint Unite 2017 Session

2. SharePoint & Large lists
Albert-Jan Schot @appieschot

3. SharePoint lists & libraries
“You can store up to 30 million items
or documents in a SharePoint list or
library.”

4. List View Threshold
1. A view returns a total of more than 5,000 items
or
2. Evaluate more than 5,000 items to determine if they match
• Items in the recycle bin count towards your List View Threshold
• Items are grouped per folder unless you specify otherwise
• Sorting a view re-evaluates the items by executing a query

5. Announcements at Ignite 2017
A single list can contain up to 30 million items.
The modern lists and libraries user experience is
ready for the largest enterprise content
collaboration scenarios.
The modern UI has been tuned to take better
advantage of indices to handle user queries.

6. Predictive Indexing
Feature Capability Availability
Synchronous indexing
Lists of size 2,500 – 19,999 items
Create indices on demand, when they’re
needed
Create indices for ad-hoc user sorts inside lists NOW!
Create indices for filtered and sorted columns inside
views, when views are created or saved
NOW!
Create indices for more ad-hoc actions: filters, API calls,
Group Bys, etc.
Evaluating for CY2018
Priority based on usage data, feedback
Background Indexing
Lists of size 2,500 – 19,999 items
Go through and create indices for old
views that were created a long time ago
Create indices for filtered and sorted columns inside
views
NOW!
Predictive indexing for very large lists of
size 20,000+ items
All of the above capabilities continue to work when lists
become very large
Evaluating for CY2018
Priority based on usage data, feedback

7. Robust User Experience
Feature Current Availability Evaluating for CY2018
Smart Sorts
Queries that specify a sort, but no filter, can take advantage of
indices.
Paging feature works when your sort
is specified on one of these field
types:
• Single line of text
• Multiple lines of text
• Date/Time
• Single value choice
• Multi-value choice
• Number
• Currency
Paging feature works when your sort is
specified on one of these field types:
• Person
• Lookup
• Managed Metadata
Users Don’t Get Throttled
Users can page through items along the specified sort order,
when that query would normally be throttled.
Requires a sort on a supported indexed field

8. Ignite 2017 takeaways
1. While SharePoint Lists and Libraries can support up to 30M items you
should do up-front planning.
2. Predictive indexing works in classic, but smart sort is modern-only
3. Let predictive indexing work for you
• Set up your indexes before migrating your whole list if you have
more than 20K items
• Set up views (or indices) to mirror API calls that will be made

9. Options when hitting the
List View Threshold
1. Move documents into folders
2. Column indexing
3. Metadata Navigation
4. Content Organizer
5. 3th Party Solutions or Custom
Development

10. Documents into Folders
1. Folder versus Metadata
2. Move items to a folder and create a structure where there no
more than 5000 documents in a folder
3. Document sets are a folder

11. Column Indexing
1. Maximum of 20 indexes per list, and not all columns can be
indexed
▪ Not supported: Multiple lines of text, Choice (multi-valued), Calculated,
Hyperlink or Picture, Custom Columns, Person or Group (multi-valued),
External data
2. Only used by the first filter
3. Cannot be created once a list is + 20.000 items
4. ID & Name are indexed by default, any column set to be unique
is indexed as well.

12. Metadata Navigation
1. Compound Indexes: Combine filters on indexed columns
instead of one
2. Fall back to return a subset of less than 5000 instead of ‘error’
3. Requires configuration on the list, and should be turned on
before hitting the +5000 items.

13. Content Organizer
1. Move documents in folders for you, based on rules
2. Manage folder size, thus making sure no more than 2500 items will be put in a
folder

14. How to deal with large lists
1. Plan large lists before being confronted
2. Consider alternatives like 3th party apps or search
3. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should
4. Provide feedback https://sharepoint.uservoice.com