Hidden gems: SharePoint 2010 Circulation list and Phone Call Memo

Today I found one of the hidden gems in SharePoint. (yes, I realize this sounds like playing a game 😉 )
I was looking around to create a test site, and tried the “Group Work Site”.
This gave me a quite cool site with a Group Calendar and the usual tasks, links, shared documents and Team Discussions.
But in the lists, I also found 2 new lists: Phone Call Memo and Circulations!!

Phone Call Memo
Imagine you are in meeting or at the coffee machine talking about the big fish you caught last weekend when your phone on the desk rings. Normally your coworker (or secretary) will pick up and tell the caller you are in meeting. Perhaps they will write something down on paper or send you an email about who called and what it was for.
Phone call memo

This list in SharePoint contains all fields to put such a memo on SharePoint: Call from, recipients, confidential (yes/no), Message, …
So now your coworker or private Moneypenny can fill in an item in this list. Views in this list are: my unresolved memos, my memos, memos from me, ..

IMHO: looks quite cool, but nowadays most people have an answering machine (via the awesome Exchange 2010 / Lync function or on the machine itself) or a callback option on their phones..

Circulation
You have a document and you want a group of people to confirm they have read the document. Normally you make some kind of approval workflow and let the users fill in their name or click the approve button.
(start talking in Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarckson voice) Not anymore !!
Now in SharePoint, you have the amazing 600hp “Circulation list”.
You can create a new item in this list, where you state your information and who the recipients are to confirm they have read the info.
Next, everyone who is on the list can now simply confirm they have read the item.
Easy as pie..
Circulation list
IMHO: I am probably never going to use this type of list. Probably useful for some, with good workarounds via the default approval workflow..

About: Marijn

Marijn Somers (MVP) has over 14 years experience in the SharePoint world, starting out with SP2007. Over the years the focus has grown to Office 365, with a focus on collaboration and document management. He is a business consultant at Balestra and Principal Content Provider for "Mijn 365 Coach" that offers dutch employee video training. His main work tracks are around user adoption, training and coaching and governance. He is also not afraid to dig deeper in the technicalities with PowerShell, adaptive cards or custom formatting in lists and libraries. You can listen to him on the biweekly "Office 365 Distilled" podcast.