Name in column has been return with '[List]' - but no option to expand out like usual.

[LYeo87]

Hello.

How do I access the name entered in a sharepoint list? It would be part of a look of internal users. 

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

You would need to expand that column in Power Query.  Beware - there is a high cost to expanding lookup columns.  A better option is to use OData with pre-expansion.

[v-agajavelly]

Hi @LYeo87 ,

Just checking in one last time haven’t seen you back in a while. As per the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum guidelines, we’ll go ahead and close this thread for now. If your issue has already been resolved, that’s great to hear. But if you still need help down the line create a new post anytime. The community is always here to support you.

Regards,
Akhil.

[v-agajavelly]

Hi @LYeo87 ,

Just checking in were you able to give the OData Feed approach a shot for expanding that SharePoint lookup column? Happy if it helped pull in fields like Title and Email from the Contract Manager column.

If anything didn’t go as expected, happy to help troubleshoot.

Regards,
Akhil.

[v-agajavelly]

Hi @LYeo87 ,

Just circling back were you able to give the OData Feed approach a try for expanding the SharePoint lookup column? It’s such a helpful trick when that pesky expand icon doesn’t show up in Power Query. Just want to know if it worked smoothly for you and if you were able to access fields like Title and Email from your Contract Manager column. If you ran into any snags or weird behavior along the way, feel free to drop a note always happy to help troubleshoot with you.

Hope everything’s going well on your end.

Regards,
Akhil.

[Royel]

Hi  @LYeo87 
Its showing no expand option because, most probably you are viewing this data within Power BI Desktop data view. To get the option,  you need to open Power Quert (Transform Data) and then you will find the expand options like this

Click the marked arrow and get your required columns.

,FYI, its showing as list because of the column configuration in that SharePoint list has marked “Allow selection of Groups” However, you can easily make it table by selecting “Allow multiple selections”

[v-agajavelly · Accepted solution]

Hi @LYeo87 ,

Thanks @lbendlin  really appreciate your quick response. You're absolutely right that expanding SharePoint lookup columns in Power Query can be tricky and may come with a performance cost.

Just to build on your solution for anyone else facing the same issue where the column shows [List] but there’s no expand icon.

In cases where the expand icon doesn’t appear, the cleanest and most reliable approach is to connect to the SharePoint list using the OData Feed, and use $expand to pre-load related fields like Contract Manager.

1. In Power BI Desktop, go to Home > Get Data > OData Feed
2. Use a URL like this.

https://yourdomain.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('YourListName')/items?$expand=ContractManager

Replace: Your domain, your site, and Your List Name with your actual site details
               Contract Manager with the internal name of your people or lookup column
      3.Once loaded, go to Power Query and expand the Contract Manager column you’ll now see fields like Title, Email, ID, etc.

 
Regards,
Akhil.

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

You would need to expand that column in Power Query.  Beware - there is a high cost to expanding lookup columns.  A better option is to use OData with pre-expansion.