SharePoint 2019 - Fundamental Introduction for beginners

Sharing of Information

From the beginning of the human evolution, one of the key aspects was to somehow share information with others. The first tool, that we were using in these times was simply our mouth and speech. Through time, we have developed more sophisticated and durable methods how to store & preserve information. We have learned how to manufacture and use paper, CDs, DVDs or USB flash discs. We have also learned how to utilize our computer networks for sharing files. We were also building our Information systems to somehow store information on networks. And, of course, one of these complex and robust systems is SharePoint.

SharePoint environment

SharePoint is used mainly for Document Management Systems. This means, when you or your company have lot of documents, and you somehow need to store them, you can use SharePoint as storage. But not only that, mostly you will need to somehow control for example permissions on these documents or collaborate on them with your colleagues. Sometimes, you will need to manage versioning of your documents, get back to some earlier versions and so on. For all of this, SharePoint is an excellent option to choose.

Moreover, SharePoint nowadays is not only used for document management, but also for Intranets for companies. You can for example easily share information between different departments of your company, you can have separate sites for each department and share some news or information.

When you will use SharePoint, you will probably work on Microsoft technologies. But it is not necessary, to use Microsoft products like Windows or Office. But if you want to utilize SharePoint for your maximum, it is really recommended to use these Microsoft products.

When we want to talk about servers, or clouds, SharePoint works on both. You can have your SharePoint on your physical server, somewhere in your company, but you can also have your SharePoint hosted in cloud inside one of the Microsoft datacenters.

Lastly, SharePoint is not free. But, mostly, if you will be using SharePoint, it will be trough your company licenses, so you shouldn’t worry about the price.

SharePoint history & versions

Through time, there were free versions and paid versions. New major version of SharePoint server is now coming every three years. But nowadays, there is no free version of SharePoint. The free license of SharePoint Foundation died with version 2013.

Classic vs. Modern experience

In SharePoint 2019, there are two options of User Interface, or, sometimes known as User Experience. The first one is “classic” experience. The Classic (older) experience design is here from SharePoint 2013, and it’s also in 2016, 2019 and Online. It looks bit older but is still fully functional design.

But with SharePoint 2019 and SharePoint Online came Modern experience design, which is newer, smoother, responsive and looks like other modern-designed websites.

What is Library?

We can think of SharePoint libraries as basically file storage for our documents and files. In these libraries, we can add, edit and delete files.

In each library, we can have multiple fields (columns), called metadata. In these fields, we can store information with each file. These fields can have different types, such as text, date, choice, yes/no, person…

In libraries, we have Command Bar, where we can find:

• - Actions – basic buttons for library operations, such as adding/deleting files or renaming.

• - Views – defined set and order of fields in library. We can have different views in each library, and they can be public or private for one user.

• - Filters – options to filter data in libraries by certain conditions

Library settings

All settings for one specific library can be accessed from Library Settings page. We can change basic settings as Title or Description, through advanced settings, like columns, views, versioning permissions.

Document versioning

By default, versioning is in all SharePoint libraries turned on. This means, that if you upload some file to library, it will automatically have version 1.0. And when this file will be edited by someone (even by you), version will increase to 2.0, 3.0 witch each change. So, by this way, we can easily track changes of our documents, and in case of error we can restore previous version of document.

Check-out & Check-in

Let’s suppose, you have some document to edit, and you don’t want to someone else be able to make changes while you are editing this document. For this option is supposed check-out. This basically means, that you check-out his document only for you, and nobody else will be able to edit this document, while it is checked-out to you. Next, when you will be satisfied and finished with modification, you will check-in this document, so others will be able to make changes to it then.

OneDrive

SharePoint libraries are in many ways comparable with OneDrive folders. They can both store files and structure them somehow to folders. But Libraries and OneDrive are two different technologies. In libraries, you have your fields, views, filtering, permissions… In OneDrive, you can simply only store files. But let’s suppose, you want to be able to edit files in SharePoint without even opening your web-browser and logging into SharePoint. This can be done with synchronizing folder via OneDrive client. This simply synchronizes your SharePoint libraries into your PC OneDrive folder, so you can edit these files locally on computer, and they are then sent automatically to SharePoint.

What is List?

Lists, in difference with libraries, stores items instead of files. In simplicity, you can think of SharePoint Lists as of Excel sheets. Each row is called item in list, and columns are called fields (or columns too ?).

In each SharePoint list (as like in libraries) we can have multiple fields, views, filters, folders and so on. We have here also Command Bar, where we can find actions, views and filters.

List settings

As like in libraries, we can manage list settings through List Settings Page. We can set here list name, description, advanced settings like fields, views and so on.

Lookups

Lookup is special type of field (column), which can reference other items of SharePoint lists/libraries. This means, that in “List One”, we can have reference to some items from “List Two”. Lookups are showed as links, so when we click on them in “List One”, it takes us to the specific item from “List Two”.

Excel export

In SharePoint lists, we can use simple, but handy function called “Export to Excel”. This button will simply download file called “query.iqy”, which we can open in our desktop Excel on PC. It will automatically download all of our SharePoint list data into excel sheet, where we can for example make some reports of it, or send them to someone, who cannot access them in SharePoint.

Excel import

We can also use Excel import functionality, when we already have some data in Excel, and we want them easily to import to SharePoint List, without creating every row as item manually. In SharePoint 2019, this can be done only using Internet Explorer and simply copy-pasting data from excel into SharePoint quick edit list view.

What is Site?

Site is set of lists, libraries & pages grouped together. In the simplest example, let’s suppose we have our company with three departments: IT, HR and finance. We somehow want to share some information across all departments, but on the other side, we want to have some information shared only to users from one. For this, we can use multiple sites and subsites. So we will end with structure like this:

• - Root Site – shared information between all departments, company news, CEO news, shared lists, libraries, pages…
  Under root site, we will have these subsites, with their specific lists, libraries and pages:

  • IT subsite

  • HR subsite

  • Finance subsite

Site templates

We can save some specific site as template, so we can create new site, with the same content, but with different name and URL. This can be done in Site Settings page. We can either save site as template with, or without content. Without content, only lists and libraries definitions will be saved. With content, also list items and files will be saved into template.

Site collection

In SharePoint, we can group sites into site collections. For most users, it is very abstract term, because they are created and managed by SharePoint administrators. But you can think of site collection as some logical group of sites and subsites.

By default, every SharePoint web application should contain at least one site-collection with one root site in it.

What are SharePoint permissions?

We now know every fundamental building block of SharePoint. But we also want to somehow control access to these individual blocks of SharePoint structure. To every block in this structure we can somehow set unique permissions to control access. We can arrange these permission from top to bottom:

• - Site collection administrators – for most users almost invisible

• - Site permissions – applied to whole site

• - List / Library permissions – list & library scoped permissions

• - Item / file permissions – permissions set to individual items & files

Structuring our sites and permissions, we must consider permission inheritance. In SharePoint, everything is by default inheriting permissions from parent. This basically means, that items/files are inheriting permissions from their lists and libraries, which are inheriting permissions from sites where they are stored, which can inherit permissions from their root-sites (if they are subsites).

Let’s suppose this structure:

• Root-Site:

  • - Documents library

  • - News list

  • - IT subsite:

    • Manuals library

    • Documents library

  • - HR subsite

    • Employees list

  • - Finance subsite

    • Reports library

If we, set unique permissions for IT subsite, that only IT department people can access it, these permissions will be also applied (by inheritance) on Manuals and Documents library, so others will not be able access them.

Permission levels

We can set for people or groups these types of SharePoint permission levels by default:

• - Full Control

  • All permissions

• - Design

  • YES: Create & edit lists, libraries, pages, items, files, approve …

  • NO: Create subsites, set site permissions …

• - Edit

  • YES: Create & edit lists, libraries, items, files …

  • NO: Create subsites, set site permissions, approve …

• - Contribute

  • YES: Create & edit items, files

  • NO: Create subsites, set site permissions, approve, create lists / libraries

• - Read

  • YES: Read items

  • NO: Pretty everything

Publishing

With publishing feature, we can limit, what can see one group of people in contrast with other people on the same document. Let’s suppose we have 2 group of people:

- Readers – most of the users, supposed to only read our finished documents

- Editors – some small group of people, that is creating, editing and managing documents

And let’s assume, we have some finished version of document, that should “Readers” see, while “Editors” will be creating new version of this document. This can be done with SharePoint publishing and minor versions.

We already know, that by default, when we are making changes to our documents in SharePoint, it automatically increases version number by one 1.0, 2.0, 3.0… These versions are called Major versions. But when we want to use publishing, we must also use Minor versions – 1.1, 1.2, 1.3.

So “Readers” should see only finished, published, major versions 1.0, 2.0, 3.0…

And “Editors” should be able to see draft latest modifications – minor versions 1.1, 2.1, 3.1… These versions of document are called Drafts.

We can set versioning settings in library setting page.

Where we must firstly turn on minor versions (drafts), and then set, who should be able to see these minor versions.

All of our materials are in downloadable resources in these lecture in form of PDF document :)