Lists of Lists

Lists of Lists give you the control and flexibility to organize the content inside your app. It's a list of items that you can include in your app, which may open or link to other areas of the app, another list, or external resources (like your website or a PDF).


A list item with an image, display title, subtitle, and description:	A list of lists where each item has an image and title or description:	A list of lists where each item uses just the Display Title:

There are so many ways these can be used, so try it out and see what meets your needs! Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Display "More" menu that contains any items that didn't fit in your main navigation, which then link to other areas of your app.
Display an "Our Team" menu with an item for each staff member, which then opens to show contact info for that person.
Display menus of Opportunities or Groups with an item for each one that's available, which then opens to show more details.
Display menus of Sermons, Reading Plans, or other resources you have to share that link to your church website.

You can link to a List of Lists item from the left navigation menu (with help from Support) or from the Dashboard.

Note: If an image is attached to the List record, it will display in the app. If you're opting for no images, remove the image from the record.

Create a List

Go to Platform > List of Lists.
Click New List of Lists.
Add the necessary information.
- Parent List: If applicable, select the list above this one in the hierarchy; the list that should contain this list.
- Title: The name of the list that is used internally to refer to this list in the Platform. This is not visible in the app.
- Display Title: The title of your list to display in the app. This text displays in bold font and is larger than the Subtitle and Description. Leave this blank if you don't want to display a title in the app.
- Subtitle: Additional descriptive text about the list, which should be no longer than a single line. This text is slightly smaller than the Display Title but larger than the Description. Leave this blank if you don't want to display a subtitle in the app.
- Description: Further descriptive text about the list, which can span multiple lines. This text is smaller than the Display Title and the Subtitle. Leave this blank if you don't want to display a description in the app.
- Link URL: The link that this item should open.
  - If this list will open another list of lists, leave this blank and those list items will be tied to this list through the Parent List field.
  - To link outside of the app, enter a fully qualified URL that starts with "http://" or "https://".
  - To link to another area of PocketPlatform, we recommend using the Link Generator tool after saving this record. Make sure to refresh the page so your link displays in the Link URL field! Or, you can enter the relevant app link.
  - Alternatively, you can use the Screen field to associate another app screen with this list item.
- Start Date: The date when the list should begin displaying in the app.
- End Date: The date when the list should no longer display in the app, if applicable.
- Position: If you have multiple list items, enter a Position to indicate the order this item should display in relation to the others. Otherwise, if Position is not indicated, list items display in the order they were created.
Click Save.

Add Items to Your List

From the List of Lists record, click the Items tab.
Click New List of Lists.
Add the necessary information. These are the same fields as your List of Lists, but this time they're specific to this list item.

Note: For Parent List, make sure you select the list you created that contains this list item.
Click Save.
Repeat these steps for each item you want to add to your list.

After saving the record, you can refresh your app and see the change almost immediately. Test it out and see what looks best!

Add an Image to a List

Images can be used in addition to or instead of text fields.

Lists of Lists can display with or without images. If you want your list to include images, attach one to the List record in the Platform.

Note: If you only want to show titles with no images in your list, make sure the record does not have any images attached.

Open the List of Lists record.
If you want to add an image to a List Item, locate it on the Items tab, then click the jumplink to go to the item's List record.
Expand the Files panel on the right, and click Attach File.
Upload and attach the image.
Close the record.

The image displays at the top of the list, above the Display Title, if included. The image is expanded horizontally to the full width of the device it's being viewed on and expanded vertically based on the original image ratio.

Filter Lists of Lists

Lists of Lists are highly customizable and can be filtered based on one or more record IDs in the Platform.

To understand how this works, check out this example of the link structure breakdown:

[[APP_PREFIX]]filtered_sermons?Sermon_Date>=2022-01-01&Sermon_Date<=2022-12-31&title=Sermons+from+2022

[[APP_PREFIX]]: No need to look it up! Just included the phrase "[[APP_PREFIX]]" at the beginning of your filter.
filtered_sermons: The route path.
?Sermon_Date>=2022-01-01&Sermon_Date<=2022-12-31: The selection criteria you're using to filter.
"Sermon_Date>=2022-01-01&Sermon_Date<=2022-12-31" means you are only selecting Sermon records with a Sermon Date on or after (>=) 01/01/2022 and on or before (<=) 12/31/2022. In other words, you're selecting Sermon records between 01/01/2022 and 12/31/2022.

Note: If the field name has a space, remember to replace the space with an underscore. For example, "Sermon Date" becomes "Sermon_Date".
&title=Sermons+from+2022: The title that displays at the top of the screen.

Here are some examples to get you started. And if you come up with a great way to filter your Lists of Lists, share it with others in the MinistryPlatform Community!

Important:

The following URL examples may contain numbers surrounded by curly braces, like this: {100}. These numbers represent a particular record ID in MinistryPlatform. You can locate your appropriate record ID by opening that record in the Platform and looking at the title bar.

The curly braces may appear around a phrase, like {this}. These phrases represent some criteria to be replaced. You should replace any curly braces and the content in them with your specific filter criteria.

Note that dynamic dates are not supported. So, when filtering by dates, you must use the YYYY-MM-DD format.

Events

[[APP_PREFIX]]events?Event_Type_ID={15}&title={Classes}

Groups

[[APP_PREFIX]]groups?Congregation_ID={4}&Group_Type_ID={22}&title={Church+Groups}

Opportunities

[[APP_PREFIX]]opportunities?Program_ID={10}&{Youth+Opportunities}

Sermons & Sermon Series

[[APP_PREFIX]]filtered_sermons?Speaker_ID={27}&title={Sermons+by+John+Doe}

[[APP_PREFIX]]filtered_sermon_series?Series_Start_Date>=2021-12-31&title={Series+from+2022}

Filtered Screens

These are special versions of the screens that don't have any filter buttons. For example, you may want to link from Lists of Lists to a filtered view of events, and you're filtering on Event_Type_ID=1. To send the user to the screen without the filters, you can use the filtered path [[APP_PREFIX]]filtered_events?Event_Type_ID=1.

[[APP_PREFIX]]filtered_events?{filter_criteria}

[[APP_PREFIX]]filtered_groups?{filter_criteria}

[[APP_PREFIX]]filtered_opportunities?{filter_criteria}

Pro Tips

You can filter based on almost any record field in the Platform, but pay attention to where your filter value is coming from. For example, to filter a list of Sermons by a Congregation, you'll need to get the Congregation ID from the Congregations page. In fact, you can filter on any Foreign Key on a table, and in some cases, on an ID "one step away" such as Event -> Program -> Ministry.
You can filter based on multiple IDs! To use multiple IDs in your selection criteria, separate them with a comma.

Program_ID=1,2,3

You can filter based on multiple fields! If you want to use multiple fields, separate them with "&".

Congregation_ID=6&Group_Type_ID=13

You can include spaces in your title! To include spaces in your title, separate each word with a plus (+) sign.

&title=Title+Has+Spaces

What would you like to know more about?