SharePoint 2010 : Specify How Items in a View Are Grouped

Figure 1. A view of a document library grouping files by the Created By column.

To take advantage of grouping, select the column whose values you want to use as groups. If there are empty values in the selected column for some of the items or files in that view, they are placed under a group without a name (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. A view of a contacts list, grouped by the Company column, where one contact doesn’t have a value in the Company column.

To define the grouping when creating a view, scroll down to the Group By section in the page and expand it by using the plus (+) sign next to the section title (see Figure 3). In addition to choosing the column, you can also select the order in which the groups appear: either ascending or descending.

Figure 3. The Group By section in the view creation page.

You can specify up to two columns for grouping. The second column’s groups appear under each group only if there are items in that group. For example, grouping contacts by company and then by country makes finding people easier if you know their company and country (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Grouping by company and then by country/region.

In addition to specifying the columns for grouping and the order of the groups, you can also specify whether the groups show up expanded or collapsed by default. If you choose that columns should be collapsed by default, you can also choose how many groups to display per page. These settings affect both grouping columns.

If you choose that the groups should be expanded by default, the view displays the groups with the items shown as soon as users open the view (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. A view showing contacts grouped by company and then by country, with the groups expanded by default.

If you select that the groups should be collapsed by default, you can also select how many groups will appear per page. If you choose this option, views with a lot of groups still show the users a manageable list (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. A view showing the items grouped, with a limit of two groups per page.

The paging mechanism enables users to move back and forth between the pages by using the arrow at the bottom of the view.