Microsoft Lists are SharePoint Lists, and these lists can be displayed as calendars. Conditional formatting can now be done on calendar views! This means that you can color code your calendars, based on values in the columns, such as an event category.
Old Way: Overlays
This concept of color coding has existed in the past, for classic calendars in SharePoint, and it was called a calendar overlay. Now, it is accomplished in a completely different way, by using view formatting on a calendar view. Using the old classic views in SharePoint is not encouraged anymore.
Example: Vacation Request Calendar
In this example, I have a vacation request list, and would like to display the list as a vacation calendar, and color code the items according to what type of leave request it is. This is what my leave request form looks like. I would like to have a calendar where each leave type is displayed as a different color.
Here are the steps
Follow these steps to create a color coded a calendar view:
- Create a calendar view by clicking the View drop-down at the top right of your list. Click Create new View.
- Notice that you can configure which column is displayed as the name of the event in the calendar, either when you create the view, under More options, or you can click the View drop-down, and choose Edit Current View. The column I’m displaying in my calendar is the reason.
- Which column in your list would you like to use as the value for color coding? In my example, I have a Leave Type column, and I would like different types of leave to show as different colors. Click the settings gear at the top right of your screen, and choose List Settings.
- Scroll to the bottom, and under the Views section, click the name of the calendar view that you just created.
- Check the box next to the name of the column that you would like to use for color coding. Mine is Leave Type. Click OK to save the change.
- Back on your calendar view, click the View drop-down, and choose Format Current View.
- In the Conditional formatting section, click Manage rules.
- There will be an existing conditional formatting rule listed there, which colors all text as gray. This can be deleted. Click the ellipsis on the right side of it, and click Delete rule.
- Click Add rule.
- Choose the name of your column that you added at step 5 above. Mine is leave type. Then fill in the rest of the logic for the condition you’d like to create. My first rule will be that if the leave type is vacation, I’ll show the items as blue:
- You can click the little back arrow next to Create rule, and you’ll be looking at the list of rules, and this is where you can add more rules with the Add rule button. I’ll create a rule for each leave type:
- Be sure to click SAVE at the bottom when finished creating rules.
Here is my completed, color-coded calendar leave request / vacation calendar view:
