“What’s New” webpart on SharePoint 2010 - list is not showing up in Target List drop-down?

We have a SharePoint team site which is very heavily used.  Lot of changes occur in many lists, libraries, etc.  It is sometimes hard to keep up with what’s been changed.  One way to keep up is to setup an alert that will send you an email message when the item has changed.  But that could flood your mail box.  Another alternate is to use “What’s New” webpart that comes with SharePoint 2010 - OOB feature.  

imageConfiguring this webpart is very easy – see the screenshot.  Only thing I found out is that sometimes you may not see your list in “Target List” dropdown.  In order to see your list or library in this dropdown you have to have an index created on column called “Modified”.  Make sure you have an index created on “Modified” column.  The way to create index on any list or library column is -

  • go to list or library settings
  • under the columns section – click on Indexed Columns and click on Create a new Index. Here you can choose “Modified” from the column list and hit create. 

Once the index is created on Modified column, you should be able to see the list in a “Target List” dropdown on this webpart’s configuration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can find What'New Web part as follows: