20,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Learn all the ins and outs of SharePoint 2016, launch your site, collaborate with coworkers, and go mobile There's no doubt about it, SharePoint is a complex creature. But when broken down into easily digestible chunks, it's not quite the beast it appears to be right out of the gate--that's where SharePoint 2016 For Dummies comes in! Written in plain English and free of intimidating jargon, this friendly, accessible guide starts out by showing you just what SharePoint 2016 is, translating the terminology, and explaining the tools. Then it helps you create a site, work with apps, and master basic SharePoint administration. Next, you'll learn to use SharePoint 2016 to get social, go mobile, manage content, and connect with others through working with Office 365, archiving documents, developing workflows, and so much more. SharePoint is truly one of Microsoft's crown jewels. Launched in 2001, it offers organizations a secure place to store, organize, share, and access information under the Microsoft Office system umbrella--all in a single portal. Whether you're new to SharePoint 2016 or new to SharePoint altogether, SharePoint 2016 For Dummies is the fast and painless way to get a site up and running, branded, and populated with content. Plus, this new edition adds the need-to-know information for administrators, techsumers, and page admins who want to leverage the cloud-based features online, either as a standalone product or in conjunction with an existing SharePoint infrastructure. * Get up to speed with SharePoint 2016 and take advantage of new features * Set up and effectively manage your SharePoint site * Use SharePoint 2016 in the Cloud with SharePoint Online * Leverage SharePoint 2016 capabilities to drive business value If you want to learn SharePoint from the ground up, get your site going, and start collaborating, SharePoint 2016 For Dummies will be the dog-eared reference you'll turn to again and again.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 481
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
Ähnliche
SharePoint® 2016 For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Media and software compilation copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. Microsoft and SharePoint are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit https://hub.wiley.com/community/support/dummies.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943715
ISBN 978-1-119-18170-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-18173-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-18172-9 (ebk)
SharePoint® 2016 For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “SharePoint 2016 For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Getting Started with SharePoint 2016
Chapter 1: Getting to Know SharePoint 2016
Wrapping Your Head around SharePoint
Getting Familiar with SharePoint Building Blocks
Taking a Peek at a SharePoint Site
Getting Familiar with SharePoint Terminology
Chapter 2: Introducing SharePoint Online
Getting Familiar with SharePoint Online
Understanding Why SharePoint Online Has Become So Popular
Differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premises
Exploring the Benefits of SharePoint Online
Chapter 3: Wrangling SharePoint Functionality
Coming to Terms with Website Templates
Show Me the Apps
Working with Web Pages
Understanding Web Parts
Digging into SharePoint Features
SharePoint Tools
Integrating with Office 2016
Part 2: Diving Headfirst into SharePoint 2016
Chapter 4: Getting to Know the Team Site
Creating a SharePoint Site
Requesting a SharePoint Site
Viewing Your Team Site in the Browser
Accessing Team Sites in Office 365
Introducing the SharePoint Team Site
Chapter 5: Working with Web Pages
Introducing the Ribbon
Understanding SharePoint Web Pages
Creating a New Wiki Content Page
Creating a New Web Part Page
Chapter 6: Working with Web Parts
Adding a Web Part to Your Page
Choosing the Right Web Part
Changing Web Part Properties
Connecting Web Parts
Chapter 7: Getting Familiar with Apps
Introducing SharePoint Apps
Adding Apps to Your Site
Accessing App Settings
Configuring the General Settings
Chapter 8: Creating a Custom App
Planning Your Custom App
Creating a Custom App
Adding Columns to Your App
Working with the Title Column
Importing a Spreadsheet as an App
Taking Your App to the Next Level: Calculated and Lookup Columns
Downloading Apps from the SharePoint Store
Chapter 9: Viewing Data in Your Apps
Viewing the View
Getting to Know Your View Formats
Creating a Standard View
Managing App Data in a Datasheet View
Using Ad Hoc Views
Creating a Calendar View
Displaying Tasks in a Gantt View
Managing Existing Views
Displaying Views via Web Parts
Part 3: Becoming a SharePoint Administrator
Chapter 10: Getting Familiar with Site Settings
Finding Site Settings
Digging into Site Settings
Chapter 11: Configuring Site Navigation
Understanding How to Configure SharePoint Navigation
Configuring SharePoint Navigation
Configuring Static Navigation
Navigation Using Web Parts
Understanding Managed Navigation
Chapter 12: Understanding SharePoint Features
Getting a High-Level View of SharePoint Features
Turning On and Off Features
Exploring Common Features
Extending SharePoint with Features
Chapter 13: Changing the Look and Feel of Your Site
The Look and Feel Section of Site Settings
Changing Your Site Icon
Changing the Look of Your Site
Changing Team Site Navigation
Chapter 14: Securing Your SharePoint Site
Using SharePoint Groups
Securing Apps, Folders, Documents, and Items
Granting Administrative Access
Viewing Site Permissions
Managing SharePoint Designer Access
Part 4: Getting Social and Going Mobile
Chapter 15: Taking Control of Your Personal Profile and Content
Organizing Your Personal Content with OneDrive
Aggregating SharePoint Activity with Your Newsfeed
Tracking Your Favorite Sites
Expressing Yourself with Your Profile
Chapter 16: Getting Social
Sharing and Tracking Using the Ribbon
Tagging for Yourself and Others
Information Sharing with Blogs and Wikis
Communicating with Discussion Boards
Connecting with Others Using Feeds, Microblogs, and RSS
Alert Me
Staying in Sync with Skype for Business
Chapter 17: Taking SharePoint Mobile
Viewing SharePoint on a Mobile Device
Creating Views for Small Screens
Targeting Devices Using Channels
Pushing Content to a Smartphone
Keeping Track of Locations
Viewing Office Documents on Your Phone or Tablet
Part 5: Managing Enterprise Content
Chapter 18: Sharing and Approving Content
Sharing Your Documents
Getting Your Documents into an App
Working with Documents
Recovering Deleted Documents
Configuring Content Approval
Chapter 19: Finding What You Need with Search
Understanding How SharePoint Search Works
Searching for Content
Viewing and Refining Search Results
Making Search Your Users’ Best Friend
Removing Content from Search Results
Reviewing Search Analytics
Adding a Search Center Site
Chapter 20: Archiving Documents and Records
Defining the Terms
Creating Information Management Policies
Setting Up a Records Center
Using the Content Organizer
Managing Records in Place
Placing Records on Litigation Hold
Chapter 21: Gaining Total Control with Workflow
Getting Up to Speed with SharePoint Workflow
Understanding Workflow in SharePoint 2016
Getting Up to Speed on SharePoint Designer
Rediscovering the Out-of-the-Box Approval Workflow
Part 6: Office 365 and SharePoint Online
Chapter 22: Creating a Public Website
Creating a Public-Facing Website
Working with an Existing SharePoint Online Public-Facing Website
Chapter 23: Creating a Client Portal in SharePoint Online
Planning for Your Client Portal
Locking Down the Portal
Managing User Accounts
Launching Your Portal
Part 7: The Part of Tens
Chapter 24: Ten Hot SharePoint 2016 Topics
Getting Up to Speed with SharePoint
What’s New in SharePoint 2016 Video
Explore SharePoint 2016
Plan for SharePoint
Install and Configure SharePoint
Operate and Maintain
SharePoint Development
SharePoint Workflow
Taking SharePoint for a Spin
Staying Current: The SharePoint Blog
Chapter 25: Ten Ways to Maintain Control with Governance
Failure Is Not an Option (Neither Is Looking Away and Whistling)
Getting Executive Buy-In and Support
Building an Effective Governance Group
Finding the Right Level
Yours, Mine, Ours: Deciding Who Owns What
(Re)Visiting Social Networking Policies
Design and Branding
Content Management
Reusing Web Parts
Keeping Things Current: Web Operations Management
Chapter 26: Ten Ways to Become a SharePoint Guru
Getting Information from the Horse’s Mouth
Reading SharePoint Blogs
Finding Local User Groups
Building a Virtual Lab
Starting with a Good Foundation
Borrowing from Others
Getting Certified
Taking a Peek under the Covers
Digging Deeper under the Covers
Deconstructing a SharePoint Site
About the Author
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Pages
i
ii
v
vi
vii
viii
ix
x
xi
xii
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
151
152
153
154
155
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
229
230
231
232
233
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
369
370
372
Introduction
Acentralized web portal has become a necessity in organizations both small and large. An integrated portal provides efficiencies and advantages not seen since the adoption of computers and networks. The value of getting everyone in the organization on the same page and working in unison is instrumental to success. Modern organizations have had to adapt, and the people within them have had to adapt as well. As technology giants fought to get their web portal products to market, one platform has emerged a clear winner: Microsoft SharePoint.
We wish we could say that we foresaw the success of SharePoint back when we first started working with it as consultants. The fact is that when we were new consultants, we simply worked on whatever projects were selling. Nearly a decade ago, Ken stumbled into a small SharePoint project, pulled Rosemarie into SharePoint, and we still haven’t emerged from the SharePoint world.
SharePoint 2016 is the latest version of the product and has more fanfare attached to it than any previous version. Microsoft products tend to get better over time. (Some of our friends won’t buy a Microsoft product until it’s the third version or later.) SharePoint 2016 won’t disappoint; it’s a very mature and polished product.
The release of SharePoint 2016 ushers in the evolved strategy for SharePoint Online. No longer do you need to wait a couple of years to use the latest version of SharePoint in the Microsoft cloud. SharePoint Online uses SharePoint 2016, and everything you read about in this book directly relates to SharePoint Online. In fact, if you use SharePoint Online, then you will likely have already used some of the new features of SharePoint 2016. Microsoft now rolls out features to SharePoint Online as they are ready and then packages all of those features into a grand release for those who want to install SharePoint themselves. The latest release being SharePoint 2016.
If you’re already familiar with SharePoint, then this latest version of the product will be familiar, and many of the annoying and painful bugs and interfaces of previous versions have finally been worked out. You no longer need a highly paid consultant to walk you through each aspect of every feature. In a nutshell, things are finally starting to get intuitive. (Although, if you need a consultant, we can recommend some good ones.)
Whether you need to create a new website for your team, a new app to store content, or a page to approve and publish critical information, SharePoint 2016 has a solution. SharePoint 2016 is intended to be a self-service environment, and this book helps you get the most out of the platform.
We’re not saying that SharePoint is always easy; in fact, like any enterprise software system, you can expect some frustration. However, if your organization uses SharePoint 2016 or SharePoint Online, you have a wealth of solutions to solve your particular needs.
About This Book
This book is intended for anyone who encounters SharePoint or is curious about using the product. SharePoint is a vast product with many nooks and crannies, and no single book can cover all the pieces. This book is designed to provide an introduction and overview of the platform. It shows you how to get the most out of the product, whether you have never used it before or are deeply familiar with specific aspects it.
Others who may benefit from this book include
Developers:
This isn’t a development book, but the best SharePoint developers are those who understand the product. The exciting aspect of SharePoint development is that you don’t need to write programming code to develop business solutions in SharePoint. If you can work with a web browser to develop a web presence in a site like Facebook or LinkedIn, then you can develop and administer your own SharePoint site.
IT professionals:
This isn’t a book that explains how to set up a SharePoint server farm. However, this book helps you understand what features your end users may want to see in a SharePoint farm that you architect or support.
Managers:
If you manage a department or business unit, you need to understand how to get the most out of SharePoint. If your company has made significant investments in SharePoint deployment, it’d be a shame if you didn’t know how to leverage that investment.
Foolish Assumptions
Because SharePoint is such a huge topic, we have to make some assumptions about your configuration and starting knowledge, such as
You have access to some version of SharePoint 2016.
If you don’t have access to SharePoint, then sign up for SharePoint Online. After the free trial period, it costs as little as $5 a month. If you want to see all the specific things that come with the On-Premises version of the product, then there is a trial license available for 30 days. Just download it from the Microsoft download center and get started.
You’re a contributor or administrator.
Of course, many of the scenarios in this book require only that you be a contributor. So long as you know who your administrator is, you can ask that person for elevated permissions. And if you want to be master of your own SharePoint universe as an administrator, you can sign up for SharePoint Online and control all aspects of your SharePoint environment in a fairly intuitive interface.
Ideally, you have a sandbox or test environment where you can try different scenarios.
It isn’t the best strategy to lock down security on your Human Resources site only to find out nobody in your entire organization can get to their pay stub. You need a test environment or test site where you can play around with SharePoint, and then take that knowledge to your department site. Luckily, if you have access to SharePoint, you have your own personal My Site that you can explore. Another alternative is to use SharePoint Online (yes, you can buy a single license).
Many of the scenarios in this book assume your implementation includes My Site.
Unfortunately, many companies try to avoid using this feature. In SharePoint 2016, My Site is an integral component for many features. We strongly advise utilizing My Site for everyone in your organization.
Icons Used in This Book
You find a handful of icons in this book, and here’s what they mean:
Tips point out a handy shortcut, or they help you understand something important to SharePoint.
This icon marks something to remember, such as how you handle a particularly tricky part of SharePoint configuration.
This icon is our chance to share with you details about the inner workings of SharePoint. Most of the information you find here pertains to some aspect of SharePoint that requires configuration at the server. That means you can point out the stuff beside this icon to IT and ask IT to make SharePoint do that.
Although the Warning icon appears rarely, when you need to be wary of a problem or common pitfall, this icon lets you know.
Beyond the Book
In addition to what you’re reading right now, this product also comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet that describes some common SharePoint site templates, apps, and Web Parts, among other things. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and enter SharePoint 2016 For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.
Where to Go from Here
All right, you’re all set and ready to jump into this book. You can jump in anywhere you like — the book was written to allow you to do just that. But if you want to get the full story from the beginning, jump to Chapter 1 — that’s where all the action starts. (If you are already familiar with SharePoint, you might want to flip ahead to Chapter 2, where you can get your hands dirty with creating a site and developing it to fit your needs.)
Part 1
Getting Started with SharePoint 2016
IN THIS PART …
Get familiar with SharePoint as a product and platform. SharePoint is a complicated beast, and most people use only a smidgen of its functionality.
Dive into a quick intro into what makes up the SharePoint Online product and get a handle on the buzzwords around SharePoint.
Figure out what it means to develop a SharePoint site and how SharePoint works at a fundamental level.
Get your head around the vastness of SharePoint by exploring some of its functionality at a high level.
Chapter 1
Getting to Know SharePoint 2016
IN THIS CHAPTER
Gaining a general understanding of SharePoint
Exploring how the product is put together
Getting familiar with SharePoint concepts
Seeing how SharePoint works at a fundamental level
When we first heard about SharePoint, we just didn’t get it. What the heck was this new thing called SharePoint? We knew it was a Microsoft product that was supposed to do lots of things, but we just couldn’t figure out exactly what it was or how to get started working with it.
Well, after years of working with SharePoint, we have finally figured a few things out. SharePoint is indeed a Microsoft product and it is definitely capable of doing lots of things. In fact, SharePoint can do more things than you could ever imagine. And therein lies the problem. If you ask ten people what SharePoint does, you’re very likely to get ten different answers. SharePoint has such a depth to it that it’s hard to get your head around it.
In this chapter, we help you see the SharePoint big picture. You discover how SharePoint works and gain understanding on exactly what the term SharePoint means. This chapter peels away the mystery and shows you SharePoint at a basic level. After all, you need to understand SharePoint at a basic level before you can dive into its advanced functionality.
Wrapping Your Head around SharePoint
At a basic level, SharePoint is a web-based software platform, meaning that SharePoint is software designed for you to interact with using a web browser.
In past versions of SharePoint, you really needed to use Microsoft’s web browser to work with SharePoint. Times have changed though, and you can now use most any web browser to work with SharePoint.
No, really, what is SharePoint?
Maybe you’re a whiz at Word or a spreadsheet jockey with Excel. Going forward, you’re going to have to be just as good at SharePoint to get the most out of your desktop Office client applications. Microsoft continues to integrate functionality that used to be locked up in client applications, or not available at all, with SharePoint. For example, using SharePoint 2016 with Office 2016, you can create an online gallery of PowerPoint slides, display interactive spreadsheets in web pages, or reuse information from your company’s databases in Word documents. You can even use Visio 2016 to automate your business processes using SharePoint.
Officially, Microsoft represents SharePoint 2016 as a “business collaboration platform for the enterprise and web.” SharePoint is a platform from Microsoft that allows businesses to meet their diverse needs in the following domains:
Collaboration:
Use SharePoint’s collaboration sites for activities, such as managing projects or coordinating a request for proposal.
Social networking:
If you work in a large company, you can use SharePoint as a social network for the Enterprise experience to help you track coworkers and locate people in expertise networks.
Information portals and internal websites:
With SharePoint’s web content management features, you can create useful self-service internal portals and intranets.
Enterprise content management:
SharePoint offers excellent document- and record-management capabilities, including extensive support for metadata and customized search experiences.
Business intelligence:
SharePoint is an ideal platform for providing entrée into your organization’s business analysis assets. You can use insightful dashboards that allow users to get the big picture at a glance and then drill down to get more detail.
Business applications:
Use SharePoint to host sophisticated business applications, integrate business processes’ backend databases and your SharePoint content, or simply use SharePoint as the means to present access to your applications.
The functionality we discuss in the preceding list is delivered by an On-Premises version of the product and an online cloud service:
SharePoint Server 2016
is a set of applications that deliver all the functionality mentioned in the previous bulleted list. When SharePoint is installed locally and managed by your IT department, then you’re using SharePoint in what is known as an on-premises environment because it is hosted on your local premises.
SharePoint Online
is a cloud-based service offered by Microsoft that allows you to create much the same SharePoint experience as you can with SharePoint installed on a local server, but you don’t have to install and maintain it. It can come bundled with an Office 365 monthly subscription, giving you access to hosted email, calendaring, and conferencing with Exchange and Skype for Business, or you can buy a SharePoint Online monthly subscription on its own.
SharePoint Server 2016 has been designed to work with SharePoint Online. Some organizations prefer to keep sensitive content under their own control but still leverage the ease of use and other benefits of SharePoint Online. For this reason, Microsoft designed SharePoint Server 2016 to integrate with SharePoint Online. This scenario is called a hybrid environment because part of SharePoint is on your local premises and part is hosted up in the Microsoft cloud.
You can approach SharePoint with the following model in mind:
Product:
SharePoint is a product with a lot of features. Explore how SharePoint works without any customization when you’re deciding how to approach a solution, and then decide if you want to customize it for your specific needs.
Platform:
SharePoint provides everything you need to deliver a robust business solution. It provides the infrastructure (the “plumbing”) required to deliver web-based solutions.
Toolkit:
Finally, SharePoint is a set of components and controls that you can mix and match to provide a solution. You can create sites, pages, and apps, all without leaving the comfort of your web browser.
A Microsoft product
SharePoint is a software product that Microsoft develops and sells to customers. As you see in Chapter 2, SharePoint can be purchased in a couple of different ways. Regardless of how you purchase and use SharePoint, you can be rest assured that your organization is paying Microsoft a licensing fee. In other words, SharePoint isn’t free.
In the past, SharePoint had a very large cost for an organization wishing to adopt it. In addition to buying all of the licenses for your organization, you also need an IT team to install and manage SharePoint. For this reason, SharePoint used to be considered enterprise-class software because only large organizations could afford it. This is all changing though, and Microsoft now offers SharePoint Online for as little as $5 per user per month.
Microsoft also offers SharePoint Online as a bundle of other products. The branding for the bundle of products is called Office 365. To find out more about Office 365, check out Office 365 For Dummies 2nd Edition by Rosemarie Withee (Wiley).
Many different SharePoint definitions
SharePoint has many different types of users, and depending on where your role fits in, you might have a very different experience from a fellow SharePoint user. For example, you might be assigned to create and administer a SharePoint website for your team. In this case, you might see first-hand the vast functionality of SharePoint websites. On the other hand, you might be a user of a SharePoint site. In this case, your SharePoint world might be only the site that someone has already created for you. To confuse matters even further, many organizations will roll out SharePoint and give it a spiffy internal name; for example, “Connect.” So even though the cool new web tool called Connect is actually SharePoint, most users don’t even realize it!
On the more technical side, if you’re an infrastructure administrator, you see SharePoint as a platform capable of offloading the difficult job of website administration. If you’re a software developer, you see SharePoint as a web platform for developing programs for users.
The vastness of SharePoint creates areas of specialization. The result is that a person’s view of SharePoint is greatly affected by how that person uses the product. It’s important to keep this in mind when talking with people about SharePoint. If you ask ten people to define SharePoint, you’re likely to get ten different answers, as illustrated in Figure 1-1.
FIGURE 1-1: There are many different ways to define SharePoint.
SharePoint has many different administration levels, and each requires a different level of technical ability. For example, if you’re comfortable working with software like Microsoft Word and Excel, then you won’t have any problem administering a SharePoint site. At a deeper level, there are also SharePoint infrastructure administrators. To administer SharePoint at the infrastructure level is a role that falls squarely into the realm of the IT geeks.
SharePoint is a platform, so the user roles an organization defines depend on the organization itself. Here are some examples of the possible roles of users in SharePoint:
Anonymous visitor:
A person that browses to a website that just happens to be using the SharePoint platform. An anonymous visitor just sees SharePoint as a website and nothing else.
SharePoint visitor:
A person that browses to the site and authenticates so that SharePoint knows who they are. The visitor might still just see a SharePoint site as any other website, except he notices his name in the top-right corner of the screen and knows he must log in to reach the site. Visitors might not use any of the features of SharePoint, however, and just browse the information posted to the website.
SharePoint casual user:
A person that knows all the company documents are posted to SharePoint and knows she can upload her own documents to her personal SharePoint site. A casual user might realize that she is using SharePoint, or she might just think of the platform as the name the organization has given to SharePoint. For example, I have seen organizations give their web platform tool names such as Source or Smart or Knowledge Center. SharePoint is the name of the web platform product from Microsoft, which is often unknown by users of a tool built on the SharePoint platform.
SharePoint user:
A person that is familiar with SharePoint and its main features. A SharePoint user often performs various administrator functions even if he doesn’t realize it. For example, he might be responsible for an app that stores all the company policies and procedures. He is thus an app administrator. A user might also be responsible for a site for a small team, in which case he is a site administrator. As you can see, a user can play many different roles.
SharePoint power user:
A power user is not only familiar with the main SharePoint features and functionality but also dives deeper. A power user might be familiar with the functionality differences of different features, routing documents using workflows, and building site hierarchies. A power user might also be a site collection administrator and thus is responsible for a collection of sites.
SharePoint technical administrator:
A technical administrator is someone from the IT department who is responsible for SharePoint. A technical administrator is less concerned with using SharePoint for business and more concerned about making sure the platform is available and responsive. An administrator might play many different roles. For example, farm administrators are responsible for all the servers that make up SharePoint, such as web front end servers, applications servers, and database servers. Specialized database administrators focus just on the database components. There are even administrative roles for specific services, such as the search service or user profile service. Depending on the size of the SharePoint implementation, these technical administrator roles might be filled by a single overworked individual or a team with highly specialized skills.
More than a website
SharePoint is called a web platform, as opposed to just a website, because of the sheer amount of functionality and capabilities it includes. In fact, if you already administer a SharePoint website, you can easily create a new website right within the existing website. You can also develop websites with an extraordinary amount of functionality without writing a single line of code. The result is a platform for websites instead of just a single website. The multitude of features and the complexity of the product are what lead to confusion.
The terms SharePoint website and SharePoint site can be used interchangeably. Both terms mean a website that is powered by SharePoint. Because this book is all about SharePoint, we sometimes abbreviate these terms to just site.
One thing that makes SharePoint so special is that you don’t need to be a computer genius or even a power user to be a website developer and administrator in SharePoint. You just need to be comfortable using a computer.
The terms website and web application are often used interchangeably. In the deep, dark technical world of SharePoint administration, the term web application has a very specific meaning. A web application is a technical construct, and each web application has its own databases associated with it. If you create two SharePoint web applications, they store their content and configuration information in different databases. As with technology these days, a simple word can have different meanings, depending on the context of the conversation.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA AND SHAREPOINT
SharePoint and social media websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are similar in that you interact with them using your web browser. The difference is in the intended use. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are designed for consumers as a whole, whereas SharePoint is designed for individual organizations.
SharePoint has many of the social and profile features of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but these features are only available to people within your organization. In other words, only the people in your organization can use the features of SharePoint. Although SharePoint includes social and profile features, it also includes much, much more. Think of SharePoint as a product for business and productivity that also happens to have the social and profile features of sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Getting Familiar with SharePoint Building Blocks
In order to obtain a perspective on SharePoint, it is important to understand how SharePoint is put together. As mentioned previously, SharePoint is a web-based platform. A number of technologies are required in order to make the platform available. Each technology builds on the one below it. In this manner, it is common to call the whole ball of wax a technology stack.
The SharePoint technology stack begins with server computers running the Microsoft Windows Server operating system. On top of Windows Server are some additional technologies required by SharePoint. In particular, SharePoint needs a database and a web server — Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), respectively. In addition, SharePoint also needs Active Directory, which manages the servers in the domain. Only when this entire stack of technology is available can you install SharePoint, as shown in Figure 1-2.
FIGURE 1-2: The stack of technologies that make up SharePoint.
SharePoint will only work with the Microsoft stack of supporting technologies. For example, you cannot swap in an Oracle database or the open source Apache web server. SharePoint would simply refuse to install and might ask you what the heck you are trying to do using a non-Microsoft product to install SharePoint.
Taking a Peek at a SharePoint Site
The primary purpose of SharePoint is to provide websites. When you create a website, you select which type of template you want to use to create the site. The dialog box shown in Figure 1-3 shows the different templates available. Creating a site is explored in detail in Chapter 4.
FIGURE 1-3: The dialog box used to select a website template when creating a SharePoint site.
The templates you have available depend on where you are creating your SharePoint site and what features have been activated for your SharePoint environment. For example, in SharePoint Online, a tab for Duet Enterprise and Publishing only shows up if the feature is activated.
The template tells SharePoint which features and functionality should be included on the site. Keep in mind that you can always add more features and add and remove features as you decide to make your site more specific for your needs.
One of the most common SharePoint site templates is called the Team Site template. The Team Site website template includes features such as a discussion board, library to store documents, and a calendar. In fact, many books simply talk about the Team Site template and call that SharePoint. As you will learn in this book, the Team Site is very important, but it is just another SharePoint website template. Part 2 explores building a site based on the Team Site template.
A SharePoint website created using the Team Site template is shown in Figure 1-4. This team site has been customized a bit to show the latest team morale event for Portal Integrators along with some additional navigational items.
FIGURE 1-4: A standard SharePoint website created using the Team Site template.
Getting Familiar with SharePoint Terminology
You should add a number of terms to your SharePoint vocabulary. Some terms are made up by Microsoft marketing, some are industry standards, and others are buzzwords that have grown to have various meanings depending on the context of the conversation. In the following sections, I describe the various components of SharePoint, how the terms that define functionality fit together, and what they mean.
Branding
The term branding refers to the way a SharePoint site looks and behaves to users. Branding includes things like the colors, fonts, images, logos, and layout of the various components on a site. Branding your SharePoint 2016 site will be covered in Chapter 13.
The term branding is not specific to SharePoint and refers to the way something looks and behaves. The term is borrowed from the marketing industry in which an organization will brand its product. For example, Coca-Cola has a very strong brand. In the software world, branding refers to the look and feel of a piece of software or website.
Business Connectivity Services
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is a specific feature of SharePoint Server. BCS enables you to connect SharePoint with external systems. For example, say you have a customer relationship system and you need SharePoint to interact with the data in that system. You could use BCS to make it happen.
BCS can be a fairly in-depth piece of SharePoint and also often requires the skillset of a developer.
Business intelligence
The term business intelligence is definitely not new. An article was published in the October 1958 edition of the IBM Journal by H. P. Luhn called “A Business Intelligence System.” The article describes how an organization can process documents in order to make business decisions. Business intelligence has continued to evolve over the years and has morphed into something of a catch-all phrase for using data to drive business.
In the Microsoft realm, business intelligence consists of a number of different technologies. In fact, I wrote an entire sister book on the subject — Microsoft Business Intelligence For Dummies by Ken Withee (Wiley). As SharePoint has become a central and nearly ubiquitous application, it has also become a prime place to show the data that decision makers need to make decisions. In other words, SharePoint is a perfect display case for all those fancy charts, graphs, performance indicators, and other data.
Unfortunately, business intelligence has a fairly steep learning curve in SharePoint. Tools such as Report Builder, Dashboard Designer, and PowerPivot unleash endless possibilities, but figuring out how to use them all takes time. One thing you will find with business intelligence in SharePoint is that there are often many ways to achieve the same result. And therein lies the learning curve.
At the basic level, if you can create a chart in Excel, you can plunk it into a SharePoint library and embed it on a page using a Web Part. Ta-da! You just achieved business intelligence in SharePoint. The consumers of the data might never even know how easy it was to put that data in Excel and embed it in a SharePoint web page. And that is the point. These things shouldn’t be difficult to get started.
At the other end of the spectrum, however, you might need to create a data cube (a specialized database in the big data world) with millions or billions of records, and then use a specialized tool such as Dashboard Designer to create an interactive graph with clickthrough capabilities. Whew! That sounds complicated, and trust me, it is.
You need serious expertise when diving into the depths of business intelligence, but that doesn’t mean you can’t understand it at a high level. Many different tools and features make up business intelligence in SharePoint 2016, and Part 5 walks you through them at a high level and provides you with insights into quick techniques you can use to get started right away.
eDiscovery
The term eDiscovery relates to the legal world of business. In particular, the word derives from electronic discovery in litigation. If you have ever watched Law & Order, you understand that critical evidence can make or break a case. In the high-tech world of digital information, it’s a rather tricky endeavor to discover and hold electronic documents.
SharePoint 2016 has a number of features specifically designed for eDiscovery. This is great news if you’re a decision maker looking to comply with legal requirements, or you’re a lawyer. If neither applies to you, then just knowing SharePoint 2016 handles eDiscovery is good enough.
Identity management
Frankly, modern technology can often be a real pain. It seems that there are gazillions of systems in any organization, and each requires its own username and password. I have so many usernames and passwords on various websites across the Internet that my mind just tries to block it out. Of course, then I forget my password and have to go through the tiring process of resetting it each time I want to log in to a particular system. On the other side, when a user logs in to a system, that system also needs to know what the user can access.
Identity management refers to the functionality of a software system that manages users and what they can access. Identity management isn’t specific to SharePoint and is used by any system that requires you to enter a username and password.
SharePoint 2016 has made great strides in simplifying identity management. SharePoint 2016 uses claims-based authentication in conjunction with an open authentication standard called Open Authorization (OAuth for short) in order to play nicely with other systems. What this means for you is that you shouldn’t have to remember yet another username and password when working with SharePoint 2016. If only the rest of the Internet could be so thoughtful!
Mobile
It’s amazing how quickly mobile computing has taken over our lives. Not that long ago, the flip phone was a technological marvel. Not any longer! The trend towards using your smartphone or tablet to get things done is accelerating rapidly.
Previous versions of SharePoint had the capability to access a site from a smartphone, but the experience was less than stellar. SharePoint 2016 support for smartphone devices has come a long way. When paired with the new Windows 10, you might even say accessing your Word, Excel, OneNote, and PowerPoint is enjoyable on your smartphone or tablet. Well, as enjoyable as information work can be.
Here’s a great example: When viewing a SharePoint 2016 site on your phone, the site contents appear as a list; however, if you prefer the regular experience, you can select the option to switch to PC view.
Working with SharePoint from your smartphone or tablet is covered in Chapter 17.
Records management and compliance
In the world of information work, you often hear about records management and compliance. Depending on how much of a rebel you are, you might think of these terms as keeping people and processes in line or as an invitation to break some rules.
Every organization has a different set of rules around managing records and keeping processes compliant with company policy. This line of thinking is not specific to SharePoint, and, depending on your organization and industry, could be buttoned-up strict, as in the banking industry, or open to the world and free loving, as in many technology startup companies.
In SharePoint 2016, a number of features are specifically designed to keep records organized and easily managed. In addition, SharePoint has compliance features that even the stodgiest of stodgy big banks will adore. And as someone who has done consulting work for the banking industry, let me tell you, there are some really strict compliance rules out there. (Considering that they’re keeping track of our money, that’s a good thing.) Chapter 20 covers records management and compliance features in SharePoint.
Search
If you have ever used Google, Bing, or Ask.com, then you’re familiar with search engines. These search engines for the Internet are amazingly powerful and eerily comprehensive. SharePoint does a bang-up job of managing content, and the next logical step in managing content is finding content when you need it. As an organization grows, the need for search grows too.
Microsoft acquired a top-notch search company based in Oslo, Norway. The company was called FAST, and Microsoft moved quickly to integrate FAST search with SharePoint. The result now is that you have a very powerful and seamless search experience right out of the box.
Search is one of those topics that spans from simple to mind-numbingly complex. At a base level, you have search capabilities for every SharePoint site right out of the box. The tech geeks can go deeper and optimize search for your organization. For example, your search query can be aware of your role in the organization and display results specifically for you. So, for example, if you’re in sales and searching for a product, your search results will be sales materials. If you’re an engineer and searching for a product, your results will include specifications. SharePoint search can make this happen, but configuring it is best left to the IT department.
Social
In recent years, computers and the Internet have been connecting people like never before. This new way of interacting through computers is called social computing. The biggest public social network of all is Facebook. Not every organization wants to be in such a public space though.
SharePoint is designed for organizations, and the social aspects of SharePoint share a common goal with Facebook — connecting people. The difference is that SharePoint connections are limited to people in a particular organization. The social aspects of SharePoint are covered in Chapter 16.
Web content management
Content is a fairly simple concept. When you create a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet, you generate content. If you develop a web page for your colleagues to admire, you generate content. Even if you just pull out a pencil and paper and start writing, that’s content. If you scanned that paper, you could then let SharePoint work its content management wonders on the scanned image file.
SharePoint 2016 is especially powerful in handling content, as described in Chapter 18. One particularly tricky piece of content, however, is the content you develop for websites. You know, all of those web pages that contain policies and procedures and documentation and all of that? If the content is created for a web page, then it’s web content and it holds a special place in the heart of SharePoint. The web content management features of SharePoint are legendary, and many organizations first started using SharePoint for just this reason.
Content management often goes by the name Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Don’t be fooled by the terminology though. The Enterprise portion of ECM just means the system manages content at a large scale, as found in a large company or enterprise.
SharePoint and web content have a special relationship that all comes down to delegation and control. SharePoint provides the ability for many people to generate content and for a few people to approve content. This maintains order because a select group of people control what goes out to the world. SharePoint streamlines this process by allowing approved content to be published automatically.
You might be wondering what makes the relationship between SharePoint and web content so special. Well, it all comes down to delegation and control. SharePoint provides the ability for many people to generate content and for a few to approve content. After it’s approved, content can be published automatically to be consumed by the world or those in your organization.
Chapter 2
Introducing SharePoint Online
IN THIS CHAPTER
Exploring SharePoint Online
Determining why SharePoint Online has become so popular
Figuring out the difference between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premises
Understanding some of the benefits to a cloud-based offering
Just a handful of years ago, it wasn’t easy to adopt SharePoint. SharePoint fell squarely into the realm of enterprise-class software. Enterprise-class software is powerful but expensive and resource-intensive, so in order to adopt SharePoint, you needed to be a large organization with big bucks and a large IT support team.
The rapid rise of super-fast and ubiquitous Internet connectivity caused a paradigm shift in the software world. Microsoft and other companies quickly came out with new applications that offered enterprise-class software, including SharePoint, over the Internet. Microsoft branded its SharePoint offering as SharePoint Online and packaged it with products such as Exchange (email), Skype for Business (instant communication), and Office (productivity). The combined package of services (SharePoint, Exchange, Skype for Business, and Office) is called Office 365. To find out how the technologies in Office 365 fit together, check out Office 365 For Dummies 2nd Edition by Rosemarie Withee (Wiley).
In this chapter, you see how SharePoint Online has changed the game and what it means to use a cloud-based solution. You read about the differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premises and find out which you should use and when. Finally, you explore some of the benefits of using SharePoint Online.
Getting Familiar with SharePoint Online
Microsoft offers SharePoint over the Internet in a product called SharePoint Online. With SharePoint Online, Microsoft takes care of all the heavy lifting. To get SharePoint going, someone has to procure and set up the servers, and install the operating system, databases, web server, and SharePoint server. This all has to be done in a special climate-controlled room called a data center. The data center has to be secure and redundant. After all, what if a disaster happened and the data center computers in the data center — or worse, the data center itself — were destroyed? Finally, the whole setup must be scalable so that as more users begin using SharePoint for mission-critical business processes, the servers and sites can keep up with the added load. And that isn’t the end — after everything is up and running, someone still needs to manage all the updates and keep the servers humming smoothly. Whew! What a lot of work.
With a hosted solution, you or your organization are paying someone else to do all this for you, and you simply use the final product, SharePoint. With SharePoint Online, Microsoft sells its SharePoint platform as a service, so the actual servers and software run in its data centers, managed and maintained by its employees. You, being a customer of Microsoft, connect to this managed version of SharePoint over a secure channel of the Internet and use it to develop business solutions on the SharePoint platform. (Maybe a better name would be “SharePoint Infrastructure Hosted and Managed by Microsoft,” though it’s too cumbersome for marketing.) Figure 2-1 illustrates the point.
FIGURE 2-1: The SharePoint platform runs in the Microsoft data center and is accessed in a secure channel over the Internet.
Microsoft is not the only company that offers SharePoint over the Internet. Other companies, such as Fpweb.net (www.fpweb.net) and Rackspace (www.rackspace.com), also offer SharePoint over the Internet. SharePoint Online is the brand name for Microsoft’s offering.
SharePoint Online is when Microsoft manages SharePoint in its data centers and you access it over the Internet. SharePoint On-Premises is when your local IT gurus manage SharePoint in your company data center.
Understanding Why SharePoint Online Has Become So Popular
Putting a complex computer platform in place is difficult. Organizations discovered this when they implemented Enterprise Resource Planning software in the 1990s and 2000s, and it still holds true today. Putting the SharePoint platform in place is not an easy endeavor. Larger organizations usually require a more complex implementation. As the complexity of the implementation increases, so do the costs, time, and risk.
The current best practice is to use an experienced consulting firm with expertise in implementing a SharePoint platform. As in dealing with any services company, sometimes you pick a winner, and sometimes it’s a complete disaster.
SharePoint Online takes the implementation of the infrastructure out of the equation with a known variable in cost and resources. This is music to a bean counter’s ears! Predictability! The predictability of cost and time to implement are why SharePoint Online and other cloud solutions are becoming so popular. They reduce complexity and provide a fixed and certain cost on a SharePoint platform that is guaranteed to follow best practices.
Having a known variable in place for the infrastructure frees up resources to focus on the actual business problems. Which, by the way, are your main reasons for implementing SharePoint in the first place, right?
Microsoft has introduced the SharePoint Online offering to cater to everyone from small businesses to large multinationals. In fact, you can even purchase just one license if you’re a solo entrepreneur. Because Microsoft has already built out the offering, it’s just as easy to offer the same reliability and security to small companies as it is to large companies. It is, after all, the same product — the only difference is the scale.
Differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premises
In the past, there have been some major differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premises. For one, SharePoint Online used to trail the version of SharePoint that was available On-Premises. For example, when SharePoint 2013 came out, it took SharePoint Online a painfully long time before it became SharePoint 2013.
The current version is SharePoint 2016. The previous version was SharePoint 2013, and the version before that was SharePoint 2010. SharePoint Online doesn’t have a version number.
Times have changed, and Microsoft has said that going forward SharePoint Online will be where they release new features. Later they will bundle all those new features that have been rolled out over the past few years into an On-Premises release. Maybe SharePoint 2019? Who knows! One thing is certain, though: If you want the latest and greatest features, then SharePoint Online is your best bet. If you want a tried and true and stable release for your local premises, on the other hand, then On-Premises is the version for you.
