Diving into the world of SharePoint? You're in for a treat! SharePoint is a powerhouse that aids organizations in storing, managing, and tracking their electronic documents seamlessly. Its adaptability makes it a top-notch content management system, perfect for beginners. ProServeIT has nothing but good things to say about itself! If you're looking for a SharePoint guide for beginners, this post is your starting point for mastering SharePoint's capabilities.
In this blog, you will find:
What is SharePoint?
Simply put, SharePoint is a Cloud-based platform that allows an organization to manage its content, track processes, collaborate with other employees, manage business activities, and publish information. It is part of the Microsoft 365 suite of collaboration tools and integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft 365 apps and services (such as Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, and more). According to the latest statistics, SharePoint has over 200 million users across 300,000 customer organizations.
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What Makes SharePoint Unique?
SharePoint is unique because it offers a variety of features and capabilities that can suit different needs and scenarios. Some of the features that make SharePoint stand out are:
- 📂 File storage and sharing: You can store your files in SharePoint and access them from any device, anywhere. You can also share your files with your team, organization, or external users, and control their permissions and access levels.
- 👥 Team sites and communication sites: You can create sites and subsites to organize your team’s work, projects, and tasks. Team sites are connected to Office 365 groups, which provide a shared mailbox, calendar, planner, and more. Communication sites are designed to broadcast news, announcements, and updates to a large audience.
- 🌐 You can create pages to display content and information on your sites. Pages are composed of web parts, which are modular components that you can add, remove, or rearrange. Web parts can include text, images, videos, documents, charts, maps, forms, and more.
- 🤖 Workflows and automation: You can create workflows to automate business processes and tasks. Workflows can help you streamline approvals, notifications, feedback, and more. You can use Microsoft Power Automate to create workflows using a graphical interface or code.
How SharePoint Integrates with Office 365 Tools?
SharePoint integrates with other Office 365 tools to provide a seamless and consistent user experience. Some of the ways that SharePoint integrates with Office 365 tools are:
- Teams: You can add SharePoint pages or files to your Teams channels. You can also create a team from an existing SharePoint site or create a SharePoint site from an existing team.
- OneDrive: You can sync your SharePoint files to your OneDrive for offline access. You can also access your OneDrive files from SharePoint or vice versa.
- Outlook: You can send or receive email messages from your SharePoint site using the connected group mailbox. You can also view or edit your group calendar from SharePoint or Outlook.
- Power BI: You can embed Power BI reports or dashboards on your SharePoint pages. You can also connect to SharePoint data sources from Power BI.
- Power Apps: You can create custom forms or apps for your SharePoint lists or libraries using Power Apps. You can also embed Power Apps on your SharePoint pages.
- Power Automate: You can create workflows for your SharePoint sites or files using Power Automate. You can also trigger workflows from SharePoint events or actions.
How to Get Started with SharePoint - 5 Key Things to Know
Organizations use SharePoint in various ways, and SharePoint itself can encompass many capabilities, making it highly customizable to fit your organization’s needs. However, at its most basic level, here are five things that you need to know to start using SharePoint.
Tip 1. How to Upload Files
It’s easy to drag and drop files from your computer into your SharePoint document library, and, in fact, there are two ways you can upload files.
The Simple Way:
- Open the SharePoint folder where you want to upload a document.
- Open File Explorer on your computer.
- Drag and drop the file from File Explorer over to SharePoint with your mouse.
The Alternative Way:
- In the SharePoint folder where you want to upload a document, click “Upload”.
- In the box that pops up, click “File” and select the file(s) you want to upload and click “Open”.
Tip 2. Opening Documents
When you open a document with SharePoint Online, you can simply click on the document name. It will open in Office Online. From there, you have the option of editing online (simply start editing) or click “EDIT IN WORD” to open the document in Microsoft Word and edit in the application.
Tip 3. Collaborating with Others on a Document
SharePoint makes it extremely easy to collaborate on a document with your colleagues. When you open a document, you’ll be able to see the number of people who are currently working on the document with you in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
When multiple people are making changes to the document simultaneously, you will see the changes being made in real-time, along with the author who is making the changes.
If you would like to invite someone to edit the document, click the “Share” button, and you will be able to share the document easily.
More co-authoring tips are available here.
Tip 4. Searching for a Document
Just as you might search for an email in Outlook or for a file on your computer, the search function in SharePoint Online is easy to use and makes searching for your documents effortless.
You can search for something in SharePoint using two different methods: using the “Search this site” search box in the upper right-hand corner of your SharePoint site or using the “Find a file” search box above your list of folders/documents.
“Search this Site”: This option searches your entire SharePoint site for the keyword(s) you’ve typed, and it pulls the search results from file names, metadata, and the text inside Office and readable PDF files.
“Find a File”: This option searches for the keywords you’ve typed in file names, metadata, and text inside Office and readable PDF files, but since the box falls under a specific document library, it’s only going to search that document library for the results.
Some tips:
- If you want exact results, you should enter your search keywords/phrases in quotation marks.
- If you’re not sure of exactly what to search for, you can do a “wildcard search” by typing in the first few letters of the word you want to search for and following it with an asterisk (i.e., Shar* or Mic*).
Tip 5. Copying and Moving Files and Folders
Depending on your version of SharePoint, you can move or copy files in several different ways.
Copying Files:
- Select the items that you want to copy and click “Copy to.”
- Under “Choose a destination”, you can select the folder that you want to copy the information into. Don’t see the destination you want? Click “Browse sites” to see the full list of sites you can copy to.
- Click “copy here” to complete the copy.
Moving Files:
To move files requires you to follow the same steps as above, only instead of clicking “Copy to”, you’re going to click “Move to”.
More information on copying and moving files is available here >>
Conclusion:
After diving deep into the world of SharePoint, it's clear that this platform is an invaluable asset for organizations aiming for efficient content management and collaboration. From its unique features to its seamless integration with Office 365 tools, SharePoint stands out as a beginner-friendly yet powerful tool. ProServeIT's endorsement further solidifies its credibility. Whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your SharePoint skills, this guide offers a comprehensive overview to help you harness its full potential. Remember, in the realm of digital collaboration, SharePoint is your trusted ally. Embrace it, explore its capabilities, and watch your organizational productivity soar. Join the ProServeIT community for continued insights and growth.
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