- What Is Microsoft SharePoint 2010?
- Difference Between SPF and SharePoint Server
- What Is a Site?
- What Is a Personal Site?
- What Is a Ribbon?
- What Is a List?
- What Is an External List?
- What Is a Document Library?
- What Is a Wiki Page Library?
- What Is a Form Library?
- What Is an Asset Library?
- What Is a Slide Library?
- What Is a Picture Library?
- What Is a View?
- What Are Web Parts?
- What Are Alerts?
- What Is a Site Column?
- What Is a Content Type?
- What Is Tagging?
- What Is Managed Metadata?
- What Are Versions?
- What Does Check-in/Check-out Mean?
- What Is a Workflow?
What Is an External List?
An external list is unlike other SharePoint lists. Strictly speaking, it is not a SharePoint list at all because it doesn't store information inside it. An external list is a view on external data—that is, data that is contained not within SharePoint but in external databases and systems.
When you add external lists to SharePoint sites, they are displayed in an interface that looks almost exactly like a regular SharePoint list. An external list also allows most of the same interactions with the items in the list that are offered with a regular SharePoint list. This book does not cover external lists because they are an advanced feature of SharePoint 2010 that is created and configured by developers while usually looking and feeling the same as regular lists for you, the end user.