Microsoft's Ignite announcements are well underway, and almost every product and service seems to have some new capabilities in tow. Microsoft's Lists app is getting a few new features, and Microsoft has also reiterated that it's working on versions of the Lists app for Android and iPad. This isn't exactly new, and Microsoft still hasn't said when these apps are coming. There are links to the Microsoft 365 roadmap that should show a planned rollout, but they don't.
As for actual features, Microsoft has announced that it's working to make it possible to create custom list templates, including settings like column layout, formatting, and related rules. Templates can also be made available to users based on their role in the organization. Other improvements include a new rich text editor for text fields in Lists, and a smart people picker that pulls names from Microsoft Graph to make it easier to tag users in a list.
If you use Lists inside Teams, there are also some features making their way there, such as rules. These let you set specific actions in motion depending on certain information within a list, such as sending an email notification to a job applicant when they've been offered a job.
Microsoft is also bringing comments, complete with support for @mentions, to the Lists app in Teams, so you can give feedback on a list and tag other users in them. Comments are also coming to the iOS app, but Microsoft didn't say whether @mentions are supported there. Additionally, the Lists calendar view, which lets you see list items with a date field on a calendar, is now available in the Lists app in Teams. The calendar view should also be coming soon to SharePoint websites that use the Lists web part.
To avoid information loss, Microsoft is enabling list versioning by default for new lists as of mid-February. This means that changes to lists will be saved as a new version, but older versions can be recovered. By default, the 50 most recent versions are saved, but this can be changed or disabled altogether. Finally, it will soon be possible to enable or disable comments on a per-list basis.
As a reminder, Microsoft Lists is tied to SharePoint, so consumer variants of Microsoft 365 won't include it. You'll need to be a corporate customer and have a subscription that includes SharePoint.
