SharePoint’s JSON formatting capabilities empower users to customize the look and feel of SharePoint lists and libraries effortlessly. One common customization request is to remove the column name from the group header in a grouped SharePoint list view. In this blog post, we’ll explore why you might want to remove the column name and provide a step-by-step guide on achieving this using SharePoint JSON formatting.

Why Remove the Column Name?

When organizing data in SharePoint lists, you may find that the default group headers display the column names. While this is useful in many scenarios, there are times when you might prefer a cleaner, more streamlined view. Removing the column name from the grouped header can help reduce visual clutter and focus on the column value for each group.

How to Remove Column Name from Group Header?

Follow below steps to remove the column name from group header in SharePoint online or Microsoft Lists’ list view:

1. First, navigate to the SharePoint list for which you want to apply the JSON formatting. Click on the “Switch view options” drop down from top right corner of the list and select the view where you want to remove the column name from the group header.

2. Once in the desired list view, click on the “Switch view options” drop down again and select the “Format current view” option, which opens the list formatting pane.

3. Within the list formatting pane, locate the “Advanced mode” option and click on it to access the JSON formatting editor. Here you can modify the JSON to achieve the desired customization.

4. To remove the column name from the group header, copy below JSON and paste it in the JSON formatting editor:

{
	"$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/v2/row-formatting.schema.json",
	"groupProps": {
		"headerFormatter": {
			"elmType": "div",
			"style": {
				"padding-left": "12px",
				"font-size": "16px",
				"font-weight": "400",
				"cursor": "pointer",
				"outline": "0px",
				"white-space": "nowrap",
				"text-overflow": "ellipsis"
			},
			"customRowAction": {
				"action": "defaultClick"
			},
			"children": [
				{
					"elmType": "div",
					"children": [
						{
							"elmType": "span",
							"style": {
								"padding": "5px 5px 5px 5px"
							},
							"txtContent": "@group.fieldData.displayValue"
						}
					]
				},
				{
					"elmType": "div",
					"children": [
						{
							"elmType": "div",
							"style": {
								"display": "flex",
								"flex-direction": "row",
								"justify-content": "center"
							},
							"children": [
								{
									"elmType": "div",
									"txtContent": "=' (' + @group.count + ')'"
								}
							]
						}
					]
				}
			]
		}
	}
}

5. Click on the “Save” button within the JSON list formatting pane to apply the changes.

Once saved, the SharePoint list view will reflect the updated formatting, with the column name effectively removed from the group header.

Note

If you have applied the “Group by” on Person or Group (people field) OR Lookup column, [object object] will appear in the group header after applying above JSON. In that case, you will have to modify above JSON slightly as per the following table:

Type of grouped column	Part of the JSON to be changed	Change to
Person or Group	@group.fieldData.displayValue	@group.fieldData.title
Lookup	@group.fieldData.displayValue	@group.fieldData.lookupValue

Also, if you have grouped your SharePoint list view based on two columns (for example: person or group and single line of text column), you can change the text to show (txtContent) based on display name of column like:

"txtContent": "=if(@group.columnDisplayName == 'Assigned To', @group.fieldData.title, @group.fieldData.displayValue)"

By following these steps, you can harness the power of SharePoint’s JSON formatting capabilities to achieve a cleaner and more tailored presentation of your grouped list view data.

I hope this guide has been helpful in demonstrating how to remove the column name from the group header in a SharePoint list view using JSON formatting.

Above JSON is also available on GitHub in PnP List Formatting Repository at: Remove column name from group header

Learn more

• SharePoint JSON formatting: Check if date & time column is blank/empty
• SharePoint Online: Display Country Flags using JSON Formatting – multiple selections
• SharePoint Online: Why External Image URLs not working in JSON Formatting?
• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using PnP PowerShell
• SharePoint: Highlight selected list item rows using JSON formatting

SharePoint Online is a powerful collaboration and content management platform that empowers organizations to create, manage, and share information seamlessly. JSON formatting in SharePoint online allows users to customize the look and feel of the columns, views and forms in their SharePoint lists and libraries.

Earlier this year Microsoft updated the SharePoint JSON formatting feature and blocked most of the external domain image sources by default in custom JSON column and view formatting.

Only images from the following domains are allowed by default:

• tenant domain, configured multi-geo domains and vanity domains (company.sharepoint.com)
• cdn.office.net, akamaihd.net, static2.sharepointonline.com CDNs

The Solution – Modifying HTML Field Security Settings:

To address the challenge of displaying external web site domain images in JSON formatting, one effective solution is to adjust the HTML field security settings of your SharePoint site. This involves whitelisting trusted external domains or CDNs to allow their images to be displayed within your SharePoint environment. Follow these steps to implement the solution:

1. Go to your SharePoint online site.

2. Click on Settings (gear) icon from top right corner and select Site information.

3. Click on View all site settings link from Site information panel, it will open the SharePoint site settings page.

4. Under the Site Collection Administration section, locate and click on the HTML Field Security settings link.

5. Select Allow contributors to insert iframes only from the following domains, add external web site domain from where you are using the images under Allow iframes from this domain text box and click Add button.

6. Click OK button at the bottom of HTML Field Security settings page to save the changes.

7. Navigate back to the SharePoint list where you are using external image with JSON formatting and refresh the web page. Now, you should see that the external images are working using the SharePoint Online JSON formatting.

Output

Before adding external site domain to SharePoint HTML Field Security Settings:

After adding external site domain to SharePoint HTML Field Security Settings:

Learn more

• Download Image from SharePoint Image column using JSON formatting
• SharePoint JSON formatting: Check if date & time column is blank/empty
• SharePoint: Highlight selected list item rows using JSON formatting
• SharePoint Online: Download files using JSON Formatting
• How to find the Internal name of columns in SharePoint Online?
• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using PnP PowerShell

SharePoint Online is a powerful platform for managing and sharing documents and other types of content within an organization. One of the key features of SharePoint Online is its ability to use JSON View formatting to customize the look and feel of lists and libraries.

However, applying JSON View formatting can be a time-consuming and repetitive task, especially if you need to apply the same formatting to multiple sites or lists. Fortunately, we have a command-line tool called CLI for Microsoft 365 that makes it easy to automate this process.

In my previous blogs we saw how to apply SharePoint online JSON view formatting using SharePoint REST API and PnP PowerShell. In this blog post, we will explore how to use CLI for Microsoft 365 to apply JSON View formatting to SharePoint Online lists.

The first step is to install CLI for Microsoft 365. You can do this by following the instructions on the official documentation page: CLI for Microsoft 365 – Installation

Then you can use below CLI for Microsoft 365 script to apply JSON View formatting to your SharePoint online list:

# Display name of SharePoint list
$listName = "Ganesh Sanap Blogs"

# Name of SharePoint list view
$viewName = "All Items"

# JSON to apply to view formatting
$jsonViewFormatting = @'
{
    "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/view-formatting.schema.json",
    "additionalRowClass": "=if([$DueDate] <= @now, 'sp-field-severity--blocked', '')"
}
'@

# Get Credentials to connect
$m365Status = m365 status
if ($m365Status -match "Logged Out") {
   m365 login
}

# Apply JSON view formatting
m365 spo list view set --webUrl $siteUrl --listTitle $listName --title $viewName --CustomFormatter $jsonViewFormatting

Where [$DueDate] is the internal name of your SharePoint column.

Once you run above script successfully and navigate to SharePoint list view, you will see that new JSON view formatting is applied to your SharePoint online list view using CLI for Microsoft 365:

Conclusion

Using CLI for Microsoft 365, you can easily apply JSON View formatting to your SharePoint Online lists, saving time and reducing the risk of errors. By following the steps outlined in this blog post, you can quickly get started with using CLI for Microsoft 365 to apply JSON View formatting to your SharePoint Online lists.

Learn more

• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using PnP PowerShell
• SharePoint Online: Empty Recycle Bin using PnP PowerShell
• Change SharePoint Online List URL using PnP PowerShell
• Update SharePoint Page Banner Image using PnP PowerShell
• Add/Update image columns in SharePoint/Microsoft Lists using PnP PowerShell
• SharePoint Online: How to change the placeholder text in the search box
• Enable/Disable SharePoint Online List Comments using PnP PowerShell

SharePoint online JSON view formatting is a powerful feature that allows you to customize the look and feel of your SharePoint lists and libraries. In my previous article I explained how to apply JSON View formatting using SharePoint REST API. In this article, we will see how you can easily apply JSON view formatting to your SharePoint lists and libraries using PnP PowerShell from the command line.

The first step in applying SharePoint JSON view formatting using PnP PowerShell is to install PnP PowerShell module on your machine. To install PnP PowerShell, open a PowerShell console as an administrator and run the following command (or follow this article – Installing PnP PowerShell):

Install-Module PnP.PowerShell -Scope CurrentUser

For this blog post, we will use below view formatting JSON as an example:

{
    "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/view-formatting.schema.json",
    "additionalRowClass": "=if([$PublishDate] <= @now && [$IsPublished] == false, 'sp-field-severity--severeWarning', '')"
}

If you use this view formatting JSON directly in below PnP PowerShell script, you may get errors like:

Set-PnPView: Name cannot begin with the ‘=’ character, hexadecimal value 0x3D.

OR

Set-PnPView: An error occurred while parsing EntityName.

To avoid such errors you have to use HTML/XML character encoding for JSON formatting operators like <, >, &&, etc.

Operator	Encoded character
<	&lt;
>	&gt;
&	&amp;

After HTML/XML character encoding, above view formatting JSON will be converted to this:

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/view-formatting.schema.json",
  "additionalRowClass": "=if([$PublishDate] <= @now && [$IsPublished] == false, 'sp-field-severity--severeWarning', '')"
}

Then you can use below PnP PowerShell script to apply JSON View formatting to your SharePoint online list:

# SharePoint online site URL
$siteUrl = "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/SPConnect"

# Display name of SharePoint list
$listName = "Ganesh Sanap Blogs"

# Name of SharePoint list view
$viewName = "All Items"

# JSON to apply to view formatting
$jsonViewFormatting = @'
{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/view-formatting.schema.json",
  "additionalRowClass": "=if([$PublishDate] <= @now && [$IsPublished] == false, 'sp-field-severity--severeWarning', '')"
}
'@

# Connect to SharePoint online site
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $siteUrl -Interactive

# Apply JSON view formatting
Set-PnPView -List $listName -Identity $viewName -Values @{CustomFormatter = $jsonViewFormatting}

Where [$PublishDate] and [$IsPublished] are the internal names of your SharePoint columns.

Once you run above script successfully and navigate to SharePoint list view, you will see that new JSON view formatting is applied to your SharePoint online list view using PnP PowerShell:

Learn more

• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using SharePoint REST API
• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using CLI for Microsoft 365
• SharePoint Online: Empty Recycle Bin using PnP PowerShell
• Change SharePoint Online List URL using PnP PowerShell
• Update SharePoint Page Banner Image using PnP PowerShell
• Add/Update image columns in SharePoint/Microsoft Lists using PnP PowerShell
• SharePoint Online: How to change the placeholder text in the search box
• Enable/Disable SharePoint Online List Comments using PnP PowerShell

JSON View formatting in SharePoint Online can be a useful tool for customizing the way list/library data is presented to end users. This can help improve the user experience and make it easier for users to understand and interact with the SharePoint list/library data.

In this blog post, we will discuss how to apply JSON View formatting in SharePoint Online using SharePoint REST API.

If you want to reuse the JSON view formatting from existing SharePoint list view to newly created views in same SharePoint online list or in different SharePoint list with similar columns, you can get the custom JSON formatting applied on existing SharePoint list view using SharePoint REST API. You have to use the REST endpoint in below format to fetch the JSON:

https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/SPConnect/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('My List')/views/getbytitle('All Items')?$select=Title,CustomFormatter

Once you get the list view formatting JSON using above API call, you can use it in below example to apply JSON View formatting to newly created SharePoint Online lists. For this blog post, we will reuse the JSON view formatting from one of my blog posts – SharePoint Online: Highlight selected list item rows using JSON formatting

You can use below SharePoint REST API code for applying JSON view formatting to SharePoint online list:

/sites/SPConnect/SiteAssets/jquery.min.js
<script type="text/javascript">
    function updateViewJSONFormatting(listName, viewName) {
        var viewEndpoint = _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl + "/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('" + listName + "')/views/getbytitle('" + viewName + "')";

        var jsonFormatting = {
			"$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/v2/row-formatting.schema.json",
			"additionalRowClass": "=if(@isSelected, 'ms-bgColor-themePrimary ms-fontColor-white', '')"
		};
        
        var viewProperties = {
            "__metadata": {
                "type": "SP.View"
            },
            "CustomFormatter": JSON.stringify(jsonFormatting)
        };

        $.ajax({
            url: viewEndpoint,
            type: "POST",
            headers: {
                "accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
                "content-type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
                "X-RequestDigest": $("#__REQUESTDIGEST").val(),
                "X-HTTP-Method": "MERGE",
                "If-Match": "*"
            },
            data: JSON.stringify(viewProperties),
            success: function(data) {
                console.log(data);
            },
            error: function(error) {
                console.log(error);
            }
        });
    }
</script>

You can call above reusable function like:

updateViewJSONFormatting('Comments List', 'All Items')

Once above function executes successfully, navigate to your SharePoint online list view and you will see that JSON view formatting is applied to your SharePoint online list view:

Learn more

• SharePoint Online: Download document library files using JSON Formatting
• Download Image from SharePoint Image column using JSON formatting
• SharePoint JSON formatting: Check if date & time column is blank/empty
• SharePoint: Replace All Occurrences of Substring in a String using JSON Formatting
• How to find the Internal name of columns in SharePoint Online?