Aggregate SharePoint Lists and Libraries with Rollups

Rollups: Aggregating Content Across SharePoint Lists & Libraries

In many SharePoint scenarios, you want to view or manage data across multiple lists or libraries, rather than being constrained to one. Rollup web part lets you do just that: combine items from various sources into a unified view. With Ultimate Forms, rollups become a powerful no-code tool for cross-site, cross-list management and reporting.

Why Use Rollups?

Here are some common business needs that rollups help address:

• You have several libraries across subsites (say, each project has its own document library) but want a single dashboard to see all “Pending Approval” documents.

• You want to track tasks or issues across projects; each project has its own Tasks list, but you want a central backlog.

• You need to aggregate entries (e.g. timesheets, expense submissions) from multiple divisions into one report.

• You’d like one page that shows relevant items across your site collection[s] without building custom code or repeatedly querying individual lists.

Rollups help avoid redundancy or manual copy/paste, and they keep the data live (i.e. updates reflect in all views).

How Rollups Work in Ultimate Forms

Here’s a breakdown of key features and behaviors when using rollups to aggregate lists and libraries:

1. Source Selection

• You can target specific lists or libraries within a given site.

• Or choose to aggregate across multiple sites and subsites, even across multiple site collections.

• You can mix lists and libraries in the same rollup, as long as columns you aggregate or display align.

2. Filtering & Views

• You select one list to be used as a template. It controls which columns, views and filters will be applied to each of the source lists.

• You can pre-filter data by choosing to use an existing view from the template list as a filter. This is especially useful if the view already defines the desired subset (e.g. “Active Items,” “Current Month,” etc.).

• This view-based filtering is applied to all lists in all data sources automatically.

3. Display Options & Limits

• You can control how many records the rollup should show at one time.

• You can choose whether the rollup should appear collapsed (grouped) or expanded on load.

• As with any web part, you can control chrome (borders, header), positioning, etc.

4. Setup Flow

1. Create a Rollup profile (defining data sources, filtering, columns to include, etc.).

2. Add the rollup web part to the page(s) where you want the aggregated view.

3. Select the rollup profile in the web part properties.

5. Dynamic Filtering

• You can combine Rollup web part with a Filter web part on the same page
  
  
• The Filter web part sends interactive filtering data to the Rollup. Control filtering by status, date range, user, etc.

6. Performance & Best Practices

• Because rollups may pull across many sites and lists, test performance on realistic dataset sizes.

• Be careful when aggregating large libraries, especially with binary content or many columns.

• Keep common columns (e.g. “Status,” “Modified Date,” “Title”) consistently named across your lists to simplify rollup configuration.

Example Use Case

Suppose your organization runs multiple projects. Each project site has:

• A Documents library for project deliverables.

• A Tasks list to track local tasks.

You want a central “Project Dashboard” page that shows:

• All documents across all projects that are still “Pending Review”

• All tasks not yet completed across all projects

Here’s how you’d build it:

1. Create a rollup that pulls from all “Documents” libraries under all project sub-sites.

2. Use a filter on Status = “Pending Review.”

3. Also include a rollup for all “Tasks” lists, filtered for “Not Completed.”

4. Add both rollups as web parts to your dashboard page, arranging them side by side.

5. Optionally allow users to click into items to open in context.

Now your project managers or leadership can see outstanding items across the portfolio—without hopping from site to site.

Advantages & Considerations

Pros:

• Unified view across your SharePoint environment, cutting down on siloed data.

• No code solution—configurable by administrators or power users.

• Dynamic updates—as items change in source lists/libraries, rollups reflect those changes in real time.

• Flexible filtering & display—you control what to show and how.

Things to watch out for:

• If source lists use different column names/types, you need to standardize these columns.

• Complex rollups (many sources, deep subsites) may strain performance—consider limiting source scope or summarizing data.

• Security: rollups respect user permissions on the underlying lists. Users will only see items they have access to in the source. (Always test as different users.)

Summary

Rollups are a powerful feature in Ultimate Forms. It lets you aggregate content across multiple lists and libraries, spanning sites, subsites, and site collections, with no custom code. You can filter using existing views, control display options, and build unified dashboards or reports across your environment. When used thoughtfully (with attention to performance, naming consistency, and security) rollups become an indispensable tool for turning fragmented SharePoint content into meaningful, centralized insights.