One of the powerful features in SharePoint is that it allows you to lookup data from another list giving you the ability to create relationships between your Lists and Libraries.   To show how this works, let’s create a Company list and relate it to our Products list.

Begin by creating a simple custom list:

Next we’ll add some sample data using the Datasheet view:

The Datasheet view allows you to quickly add/update/delete items in a list.  It is available for most list types, including Libraries (great for deleting multiple documents at once):

Now that we have a list of Companies, let’s add a column to our Products list to show the vendor we are using for each Product:

First enter the column’s name and select “Lookup” as the type of column you would like:

Next, configure where the lookup should get its information from:

Now we have a new column on our Products list:

To add sample data, let’s use the Datasheet view again:

Now the Vendor column can select list items from the Company list:

When you return to the standard view of the Products list, you can see that the Vendor column is also a built-in hyperlink to the related Company list item: