There are times which one desires to perform validations on entries in a list. For demo pourpose a Leave Request List is created. This list contains a Start Date column and an End Date column. It is sensible to add validations that the Start Date must come before the End Date. Apart from this Start Date must be in the future.
Click “List”
Click “List Settings”
This page shows plenty of options one can modify for the list, but the focus here is mainly validations. Sharepoint offers two validation types out of the box. Column Validation and List Validation.
Column Validation (Columns)
These validations let one specify validations with regards to thet column in isolation. for example “=[Count] <= 50”.
This can be done by clicking the column that needs to be validated in the List Settings page
List Validation (Validation Settings)
There can only be one List Validation this allows specification of cross column validation. e.g. =[Start Date] < [End Date] and a single User Comment: that is displayed to the user if the dates do not pass the validation.
Validations in general w.r.t. SharePoint are mostly like Excel mor information on this at the Office Online
Pesrsonally I think this is a huge limitation since it leaves much to be desired to inform the user what is wrong with the entries when the form does not pass the validation. Apart from this one might need different validations depending on levels of access. For example the normal user cannot enter a past date in Start Date however and administrator might be allowed to do so within the company policy.