SharePoint: An introduction to its use at Oxford

Prerequisites Time in the classroom is precious – it is an opportunity for you to interact with the workshop leader and other participants through questions and discussions and to share your experiences and concerns. To make the most of this time we sometimes ask you to carry out learning activities ahead of the workshop so that everyone comes into the class with the same basic knowledge. We keep this prior learning to a minimum and often make use of Lynda.com videos. Lynda.com videos can be accessed by University members anytime, anywhere, through a browser or app.

The workshop description will tell you if any prior learning is required. If you don’t have an environment where you can do this learning, you can come along to one of our ‘Lynda Labs’. These are scheduled every week, and are a quiet space where you can work through Lynda.com videos or other workshop resources.

If you turn up to a workshop without having done the prior learning, the workshop leader may suggest that you come back on another session.

Copyright Duncan Young makes this booklet and the accompanying slides available under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike).

The Oxford University crest and logo and IT Services logo are copyright of the University of Oxford and may only be used by members of the University in accordance with the University’s branding guidelines.

About the workshop designer Duncan Young has been designing and delivering IT training courses since his debut with Excel 4 Introduction in October 1993. Since then he was worked for a number of organisations including Sophos and Microsoft where he was a co-author of their internal Office XP training programme that he then toured around their European offices. Since 2006 he was worked at the University of Oxford and specialises in spreadsheets, databases and programming.

Revision history Version Date Author Comments 1.0 September 2016 Traci Huggins 1.1 September 2017 Duncan Young Small updates

About this workshop This workshop will give you an insight into how to create and work with a SharePoint site. You will not be a fully pledged SharePoint designer by the end of the session, however it will put you in a good position with the right skills and knowledge to enable you to be creative and create/adapt a fully working and adaptable SharePoint site.

What you will learn At the end of this session you will have learned how to navigate your way around SharePoint 2013. Topics covered include:

Site collection and creating sub sites Working with documents and libraries Different ways you can view documents Uploading and downloading documents Creating/editing Blogs and Site pages Overview of MySite site

These notes deal with SharePoint using Windows. Having worked through these notes, you should also be able to adapt to other platforms including Mac OS X, since the only difference will be the web browser you use.

What you need to know No previous knowledge of SharePoint is expected. We will assume that you have some knowledge of using web browsers and that you are familiar with entering text and simple editing, rearranging and formatting text – copy and paste, printing and previewing and managing files.

We will also assume that you are familiar with opening files from particular folders and saving them, perhaps with a different name, back to the same or a different folder.

The computer network in our teaching rooms may differ slightly from that which you are used to in your College or Department; if you are confused by the differences please ask for help form the teacher or demonstrator.

The resources you need Sample Word, Excel and Images documents are available for you to experiment with will be available, but you might like to bring along your own. Unless you have been told otherwise, there will be a computer available for you to use with the following tools installed:

Internet Explorer Firefox SharePoint 2013 Training Account

Learning objectives This workshop covers the following learning objectives;

Learning Objective One – Create Sub Sites and navigation Learning Objective Two – Changing the look of the page Learning Objective Three – Create Lists and Libraries and add custom columns Learning Objective Four – Up and download documents to libraries Learning Objective Five – Creating Views Learning Objective Six – Create picture library Learning Objective Seven – Accessing your “My Site” in SharePoint

A variety of resources will help you in achieving these objectives. They can all be downloaded from the ITLC Portfolio at:

http://portfolio.it.ox.ac.uk/resource/course-pack/sharepoint-introduction-its-use-oxford/2013

To access the SharePoint Training Accounts that you will be working with today for the session you need to vist the following URL and type in the user name and password you have been given by the teacher:

https://sharepoint.nexus.ox.ac.uk/sites/training

When you log in make sure you choose the ‘This is a private computer’ option. (If you choose the other option you will be required to sign in again every few minutes).

What is a Site?

The structure of SharePoint sites (often referred to as webs) is very different from the structure of a typical Internet site that contains only pages. A SharePoint site can house more than just pages. It is a container that holds lists and libraries and it can have other sites under it. Every SharePoint site is a member of a site collection.

Attendees on this course are most likely to be administrators of a University site or site collection, though higher levels exist. The very highest level within a SharePoint implementation is known as a ‘farm’ and those running sites or collections on a ‘farm’ are referred to as ‘tenants’. Rules, templates, conventions and restrictions set at a higher level on a ‘farm’ are inherited by collections and sites below that level which often limits the options available to their administrators.

Every site collection has a single site as its root site and other sites can be built under the root site.

For example an organisation might have a home site that offers general information. That home site can house subsites which hold more specific information on Finance, HR, IT and so on and can have subsites of their own:

Here at the University of Oxford, only those authenticated via a valid University single sign-on can gain access to our Nexus SharePoint Service. To edit, or even view, a specific site within that Service an authenticated user must be granted Permissions by the Owner(s) of that site. To streamline administration, that user would usually be allocated to a particular Group which has a permission level already attached to it.

When a site is created SharePoint automatically provides three security groups – the Visitors, Members and Owners groups. Additional groups can be created depending on the type of site.

A permission level is a set of rules (permissions) that determines what a group can do with a particular collection, site, subsite, list, library, or item. When a Team Site is set up via its standard SharePoint template several permission levels are automatically created:

Full control – allows total control of a site, users at this level can add, delete, approve, move and create new sites.

Design – users at this level can view, add, delete, update, approve and customise a SharePoint site.

Contribute – users at this level can view pages and list items and download documents.

Limited Access – users at this level can view specific lists and documents libraries when given access

View Only – similar to the Read permission level, but users at this level cannot download items.

Company

Finance Dept HR Dept IT Dept. Sales Dept.

Organisation

Finance Dept. HR Dept. IT Dept.

When a site is created, by default the Visitors group is given Read permissions, the Members group is given Contribute permissions and the Owners group is given Full Control. A site owner can then customise that if required.

SharePoint permissions are very comprehensive and this subject is covered in detail on the Lynda.com online course “SharePoint 2013 Security for Users” available free to University members.

Learning Objective One – Create Sub Sites and Navigation

The Settings Button on your “Home” page offers all the options needed within SharePoint for you to manage your site.

It is important to remember that when you want to make changes or add content/sub sites to your site you must always ensure that you are in the correct site.

To create a new site (sub site / new page) you would need to click on Site Contents as shown opposite, then select New Subsite as shown below:

On the page that then appears you can name the site and its associated web page. A new subsite inherits by default the permissions set on its parent site, but you could change that by selecting the option at the bottom of the page to ‘Use unique permissions’.

To Do: …. You now need to create two sub sites one called Team site which will inherit permissions from the parent site and another site called Project which will have unique permissions. For the Project Site assign yourself (your work email) as a Member or Visitor or Both. Remember to make sure that you add navigation to the Top Link Bar (Global Navigation) when setting up the sites.

Learning Objective two – Changing the look of the Page/Sub Site If the default text layout of the site does not suit, you can change it by clicking PAGE in the menu near the top of the screen, then selecting Edit and Text Layout from the ribbon. The options are shown in this graphic:

When you have chosen your desired new layout select it then if you click Save on the ribbon it will save the changes for you.

Customising the sites interface

Once you have set up your site it is very possible that you will want to customise a few things to meet the needs of your team. Change the look supports a number of out-of-the-box formatting options which help you to set up your site to match your corporate or departmental colours, change layouts or simply change fonts and logos to your preference.

1. On the home page of your site click on the Settings Button, then ‘Site Settings’.

2. On the Site Settings page, find the Look and Feel section then click on ‘Change the look’.

3. On the ‘Change the look’ page, click one of the displayed templates.

4. If required, change the background image by clicking on ‘Change’ and choosing your own image to fill out the background of the site.

5. Colours: this will allow you to choose a different colour scheme for the templates.

6. Site Layout: this will allow you to choose a non-default site layout for the template.

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7. Fonts: this will allow you to choose a non-default font for the template.

To Do: ….

Have a go at playing around with the different templates that are available for you to use in SharePoint. Choose a different Theme for each site that you have created. Remember that when you change the template of your site it can change layout of what you have already created – so be careful!

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Learning Objective Three – Create Lists and Libraries

Lists and libraries are at the heart of SharePoint; this is where all data is stored. Libraries are in fact just a type of list which has been configured to store documents and lists store the sort of information you might otherwise find in a spreadsheet e.g. tasks, contacts, asset lists or check lists. Lists and libraries are configured in the same way; both are made up of columns, views and the items themselves.

Using lists and libraries effectively means understanding;

Columns and document properties

Views

Ways of adding content

Setting permissions

To create either lists or libraries - click on the Settings Button in the right hand corner and choose ‘Add an App’ then select Custom List from the Apps available.

Once you have selected Custom List SharePoint will ask you to give the list a name. In this instance I have called my list Loanable Equipment. Your new list will now appear on the Quick Launch on the site where it was created.

To Do: ….

Firstly create a list to hold information on staff members, make sure you include both their departments and job titles, you will need to add more columns to accommodate the required data in the list, (please feel free to add other columns to the list that you feel might be necessary)

Next create a library to hold all the documents required for team/staff meetings, create two new columns in the library called;

Category – which will have multiple choices of; Other, Agenda, Minutes, Expenses, Reports, Invoices and POs.

Academic Year – which again will have multiple choices of; 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17 Now you have your library created you need to populate it by uploading files, a selection of files can be found on the “Home Drive” – use these files and Internet Explorer and upload them to your library. Use the Edit button on the Toolbar, then choose Quick Edit, in the library use the dropdown arrows to choose the correct Category and Year for each of the entries – repeat this process for all the files uploaded.

Learning Objective Four – Create Views for lists and libraries

When working with Lists and Libraries, sometimes you may need to add extra columns or custom columns that are unique to you, or it could be that you might want to re-use the List/Library for another audience and therefore you might want to have different columns on display.

Views are easy to create. The main two different views that are used as a basis are the Standard View (which is the view we see libraries normally displayed) and Data Sheet View (which looks the same as a spreadsheet). Navigate to the required library and on the ribbon choose the Library Tab then choose Create View. You will see the following options to enable you to create a view. Choose Standard View.

On the Settings page SharePoint will ask you to type a name for the view, you must also make sure that you put a tick in the box “Make this the default view”, leave the tick in the “Create a Public View”.

In the columns section (above) it will allow you to change the order of the columns by using the arrows to change the number.

When you create views it also allows you to Group and Filter out the data in the library to meet your needs or requirements. To group the data select Group By then click on the down arrow next to ‘First group by the column’ and choose Category which is the new column heading that you created

Grouping the columns

Click on Save and your library view will now look like this:

Library View after Grouping

Control who has access to your SharePoint Library

Navigate to the library you want to share with colleagues, on the Library tab of the ribbon and choose Library Settings.

On the Settings page choose the Permissions for this document library link.

Permissions for the document library

If the library inherits permissions from a parent site, choose Stop Inheriting Permissions on the Permissions tab. Then click OK on the message that appears.

You then need to click on Grant Permissions on the ribbon you will then see the following dialog box which allows you to add peoples email addresses as well as letting you include a personal message to them to let them know what you have given them access to.

Inviting people to share your library

Now only the people that you added in the Share dialog have access to the documents in the library.

Rename Files in a Library

Click on the ellipses (…) next to a file you want to rename

Then click on the ellipses on the callout at the bottom and choose Edit Properties

Rename the file in the Name field and then click Save.

Creating a view for your Library

Adding new columns to your library allows you to personalise your library but to view your library showing these new columns you have to create a View in SharePoint. There are two ways of creating Views in your library.

Select Library | Library Settings then scroll down to Views.

Click on Create View, then on Standard View.

Give the View a name – make it relevant to Library.

Make sure that you put a tick in Make this the default view (otherwise the view of this library will revert back to its original view).

Creating a view for a library

Next you have the option to change the ordering of the columns in your library.

Changing the column ordering in your new view

You can also at this point Sort/Filter/Group By then click OK.

Delete Files in a Library

Click on the ellipses (…) next to a file you want to delete and then click the ellipses on the callout (as above). Click Delete, then Click OK to confirm sending the file to the recycle bin.

To Do: ….

Now have a go at creating lists and/or libraries and try to complete the following;

Adding columns to lists/library

Create a custom view of the library

Create two libraries – one with folders and one without folders

Try and change the permission levels on the library with folders

Add documents to the library and information into the list

Learning Objective Five – Create/Edit Blog and site pages

You can create a Blog site in SharePoint by creating a new site or site collection and selecting the Blog Site Template. In many cases, creating a Blog site might be a task you have been requested to do by other members of your organisation.

A Blog site is defined by how it presents content to users – a series of blog posts in reverse chronological order (most recent entries first). SharePoint 2013 blog sites also include information about the author and the purpose or description of the site.

Additional features include the ability to filter posts by category or calendar months, bookmark or share a link to a post and subscribe to the blog using any RSS reader client.

You also at this point have the option to choose that this Blog uses the same permissions as the parent site – or you can change the permissions and use ‘Unique Permissions’ – by choosing ‘Unique Permissions’ you can choose exactly who can and can’t have access to this Blog.

You also have the option to add this Blog as a link on the Quick Launch of the Parent site or/and have it as a navigation link on the Top Link Bar of the parent site. It is advisable that you keep the navigation for this Blog on the Quick Launch on the actual page/sub site that this Blog belongs to instead of having it as a link on the Top Link Bar.

To Do: ….

Blogs are not for everybody, but they are a good way of keeping track of your, or your team’s, performance – play around with the Blog facilities in SharePoint and do the following;

Create a Post

Add categories

Break inheritance from the parent site.

Change a blog post layout (boxed layout and inline layout)

Learning Objective Six – Create Picture Libraries

A Picture library enables you to share a collection of digital pictures or graphics. You can link to pictures in your library from elsewhere on your site.

Although pictures can be stored in other types of SharePoint libraries, picture libraries have several advantages. For example, from a picture library you can view pictures in a slide show, download pictures to your computer, and edit pictures with graphics programs that are compatible with Windows SharePoint Services.

Consider creating a picture library if your team reuses lots of graphics, such as logos and corporate images, or if you want to store pictures of team events or product launches.

Create a Picture Library

Firstly navigate to the site or subsite where you want to create your picture library. You then need to click on the Settings Button and select Add an App.

On the ‘Your Apps’ page, look for and click the Picture Library icon.

In the Name box, type a name for your Picture Library, the library name is required (the name appears at the top of the library page, becomes part of the address for the library page, and appears in navigational elements that help users find and open the library).

To add a description of the library, set the library to receive email, or enable versioning for the library click Advanced Options on the Adding Picture Library dialog box.

Click Create. The name of the Picture Library appears under Recent in the Quick Launch.

Upload Pictures

Pictures can be either individually uploaded or you can upload multiple images at one time. Navigate to the site containing the Picture library for which you want to upload pictures.

Click the name of the library (this should be on the Quick Launch Panel on the left).

Choose the images that you wish to upload then drag and drop them into the library.

Delete Pictures

This can be found on the Quick Launch, under Recent, click the name of the library, or click Site Contents and click the library title.

Click on the ellipses (…) next to a file you want to delete and then click the ellipses on the callout (as shown below).

Then click Delete.

To Do: ….

There are a variety of images saved on the Home Drive on your classroom computer, use these images and create yourself a picture library.

If you have time play around with the options available to you on how you display your images, and/or create folders to store different types of images in different places.

Are you able to change the permissions of the folder/picture library?

Learning Objective Seven – Accessing your “My Site” in SharePoint

University members have access to their own SharePoint “My Site”. This is a personal website where you can share documents with colleagues, store documents for your own personal use, tag items, add and edit your personal information, create tasks and see any that others have been assigned to you, create a blog and follow your colleagues’ SharePoint activities.

A “My Site” consists of two libraries by default called Personal Documents and Shared Documents. The Shared Documents library is where you can share documents with friends and colleagues (N.B. unless you change the permissions on this library it is actually open to viewing by all SharePoint users should they so wish), whereas the Personal Documents is for your personal use.

How to apply for your own “My Site”

There is no need! Simply follow the procedure below and your “My Site” will appear. For some people the site will already have been built and is waiting. For others it may take a minute or two to build as soon as you click on the drop down button as outlined below.

How to access your “My Site”

https://mysite.nexus.ox.ac.uk/default.aspx

Wherever you are in your SharePoint Site you will be able to see a button labelled with your name on the top right hand side of the ribbon, clicking on your name will give you the following options;

Although you will not be using your own sites today during class most things that we cover today can be implemented in your own site.

In order for you to log into your own site you would firstly need to log out of the training accounts. Make sure that while you are in class today to check that you have access to your “My Site” in SharePoint, use your “My Site” to help you practice the skills you have learnt in today’s sessions.

To Do: ….

Log out of the training accounts that you have been working with during today’s session and try to log into your own SharePoint site. When using SharePoint and getting to grips with creating sub sites / libraries / lists – your own site is a really good way of being able to practice using SharePoint without using a live site that other people are accessing.

Further information - Getting extra help

Clinics The IT Learning Centre offers bookable clinics where you can get pre- or post-course advice.

About Lynda.com Lynda.com is free to all members of the University. Visit courses.it.ox.ac.uk/lynda and sign in with your Single Sign-On (SSO) credentials. Some courses recommend pre- and/or post-course playlists of Lynda.com videos to support your learning. You can watch these anywhere, anytime, and even download them on to a tablet or smartphone for off-line viewing. If you need a quiet place to work through playlists away from distractions, the IT Learning Centre offers frequent Lynda Labs that you can book on to.

About the ITLC Portfolio Many of the resources used on the IT Learning Centre courses and workshops are made available as Open Educational Resources (OER) via our Portfolio website at portfolio.it.ox.ac.uk.

About the IT Learning Centre The IT Learning Centre delivers over 100 It-related classroom-based courses, and gives you access to thousands of on-line course through Lynda.com.

Our team of teachers have backgrounds in academia, research, business and education and are supported by other experts from around the University and beyond.

Our courses are open to all members of the University at a small charge. Where resources allow, we can deliver closed courses to departments and colleges, which can be more cost effective than signing up individually. We can also customize courses to suit your needs.

Our fully equipped suite of seven teaching and training rooms are available for hire for your own events and courses. For more information contact us at courses@it.ox.ac.uk

About IT Customer Services The IT Learning Centre is part of the Customer Services Group which was formed in February 2013. The group’s remit includes providing the main user support services for the department, assisting all staff and students within the University as well as retired staff and other users of University IT services. It supports all the services offered by the department plus general IT support queries from any user, working in collaboration with local IT support units. The group also offers PC back-up/install and repair services; an online shop; and a PC maintenance scheme. Customer Services is further responsible for desktop computing services – for staff and in public/shared areas – throughout UAS and the Bodleian Libraries.

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Duncan Youngduncan.young@it.ox.ac.uk

SharePoint: An introduction to its use at Oxford

Your safety is important

Where is the fire exit?

Beware of hazards

Please tell us if anything does not work

Let us know if you have any other concerns

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Your comfort is important..

• The toilets are along the corridor outside the lecture rooms

• The rest area is where you registered• The swivel seats are adjustable• You can adjust the monitors for

height, tilt and brightness

The Course Handbook ..

Contains notes on each topic + slides

Tasks for you to practice during today’s courseWork at your own pace

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Course Outline …..

What is SharePoint SharePoint Security Creating Sub Sites Setting Up Navigation Changing Permissions

Creating Lists Creating Libraries Create and Edit Blogs Create Picture Libraries Accessing your “MySite”

What is SharePoint..?Web‐based enterprise content management

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What is SharePoint..?

Information and process management for groups“Where is everything and what’s going on?”

A ‘wiki’ – encourages collaboration and team working

Not like a traditional web-siteFocussed on sharing lists and libraries

Pages can enhance the structure

Close integration with Microsoft Office & Project

What is SharePoint..?Web‐based enterprise content management

Farm

Site Collection(s)

Site

List Library

Item

Item

Item

Document

Document

Document

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Training Accounts …..

Creating Sub Sites ….

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SharePoint Permissions

When a site is created SharePoint automatically provides three security groups

Setting up Navigation …..

There are commonly two different types of Navigation Quick Launch and Top Link Bar

Top link bar is for global navigation and Quick Launch is for the site navigation 

OR

Navigation links on text/images in the sites themselves

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Changing the Look and Feel

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Creating a custom list…

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Libraries ……

Libraries consist of files (and folders) that can be shared with other site users 

Creating a Library …

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Creating a View …

Library Permissions …Control who has access to your SharePoint Library

Navigate to the library you want to share with colleagues on the library tab of the ribbon, choose Library Settings

To change permission levels before sending click on show options

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Creating a Picture Library …

Consider creating a picture library if your team reuses lots of graphics, such as logos and corporate images, or if you want to store pictures of team events or product launches

Creating a Blog …

Create a blog postAdd categoriesChange a blog post layout to either;

boxed layoutinline layout

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Changing Permissions……..

Granting Permissions and Sharing ……..

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Creating Custom Groups ……

Deleting Sub Sites ……

From the Sub Site itself;

Site Actions | Site Settings | Delete this site

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This presentation is made available by Traci Huggins under a Creative Commons licence:

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlikeCC BY-NC-SA

Individual images may be subject to their own copyright conditions and where possible this is acknowledged in the presentation

duncan.young@it.ox.ac.uk