Stump the Panel: SharePoint Q&A

I have a site that contains a list used for tracking business calls that has grown to over 3000 items and growing. The site owner is looking to 'archive' items to help control the size of the list. Is there a 'best way' to do this?

Also, what are the issues with large lists?

Thank you for your time,
Christine

Its alright to have a list that big you just need to make sure you have have any views that display more than about 2000 records. Last week one of our servers kept crashing and when the Microsoft techs came out they said it was because of a list with about 15,000 items, there was a view showing 3000 items and it was causing the issue.

For archiving you can create an archive list and use a workflow to move items over based on a field. Another option is to use information management policies to track older unmodified items and trigger a workflow when they reach a certain age.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms499244.aspx

I concur with Dave; I have lists in one site collection that contain tens of thousands of items and don't see any significant performance impact so long as I return the list items in manageable chunks. Think of it this way... if you asked one of your users to find a piece of information (without using Search) in a flat list view containing 1,999 items, how easy would that be?

If however you chunk out the list items in the view and tinker with grouping, sorting, view styles and item limits you'll often end up with a design that your users are happier with, and you'll have insulated yourself against concerns about list growth.

<end soapbox mode>

Like already stated, dont return more than 2000 items, paginate your results for better performance. Indexing columns can help. Multiple views are important, ask your users what data they are trying to see in this large list and created structured filtered views to achieve that.

eric

Can I just say that I have NEVER received so much constructive feedback from ANY forum before! Thank you one and all......I am definitely going to incorporate additional views (each region already has their own that only gives them exactly what they need) and also look into archiving by way of a workflow to a separate list (or even the Records Center).

Much appreciated!
Best,
Christine