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Beschreibung

All you need to know about SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server SharePoint is an enterprise portal server living under the Microsoft Office umbrella. It can be used as a local installation (on-premises) or an online service. The SharePoint Online service comes bundled with Office 365. You can use SharePoint to aggregate sites, information, data, and applications into a single portal. SharePoint 2019 contains highly integrated features that allow you to work with it directly from other Office products such as Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and many others. SharePoint For Dummies provides a thorough update on how to make the most of all the new SharePoint and Office features--while still building on the great and well-reviewed content in the prior editions. The book shows those new to SharePoint or new to SharePoint 2019 how to get up and running so that you and your team can become productive with this powerful tool. * Find high-level, need-to-know information for "techsumers", administrators, and admins * Learn how SharePoint Online can get you started in minutes without the hassle and frustration of building out your own servers * Find everything you need to know about the latest release of SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server Get your hands on the best guide on the market for SharePoint!

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Microsoft® SharePoint® For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

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 http://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.

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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: 2019936792

ISBN 978-1-119-55065-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-55062-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-55060-0 (ebk)

Microsoft® SharePoint® For Dummies®

To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Microsoft SharePoint 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

Chapter 1: Getting to Know SharePoint

Up and Running with SharePoint in Three Minutes Flat

Wrapping Your Head around SharePoint

Taking a Peek at a SharePoint Site

Getting Familiar with SharePoint Terminology

Chapter 2: Introducing SharePoint in Office 365

Accessing and Using SharePoint

Getting Familiar with SharePoint Online

Determining What Version of SharePoint You Are Using

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

Integrating with Office 2019

Part 2: Diving Headfirst into SharePoint

Chapter 4: Discovering SharePoint in Your Pocket

Installing the SharePoint Mobile App

Signing into the SharePoint Mobile App

Finding Your SharePoint Stuff with the Find Tab

Getting the Latest News with the News Tab

All About You with the Me Tab

Chapter 5: Understanding SharePoint Sites and Hub Sites

Accessing SharePoint Sites in Office 365

Exploring the SharePoint Team Site

Creating a SharePoint Site

Requesting a SharePoint Site

Grouping Sites with Hub Sites

Chapter 6: Working with Web Pages and Web Parts

Understanding SharePoint Web Pages

Introducing the Ribbon

Deciding What Type of Page to Create

Digging into Web Parts

Adding a Web Part to Your Page

Choosing the Right Web Part

Changing Web Part Properties

Connecting Web Parts

Managing Pages

Categorizing Your Wiki Pages

Taking a Sneak Peek into Custom Page Designs

Chapter 7: Adding Content to SharePoint

SharePoint as a Content Management System

Wrangling the Overwhelming Mountain of Digital Content

Getting Your Documents into SharePoint

Creating New Content in SharePoint

Using the SharePoint Mobile App to Peek at Content on the Go

Chapter 8: Discovering SharePoint in Microsoft Teams

Using Teams in Office 365

Understanding the Marriage of SharePoint and Teams

Adding SharePoint Pages and Lists to Teams

Chapter 9: Working with SharePoint from Microsoft Office

Getting Familiar with Office Versioning

Working with Office on Your Desktop or Laptop

Working with Office on Your Smartphone or Tablet

Chapter 10: Getting Social

Sharing and Following SharePoint Sites

Staying Up to Date with News

Information Sharing with Blogs and Wikis

Communicating with Discussion Boards

Connecting with Others Using RSS Feeds

Using Comments in a SharePoint site

Part 3: Customizing SharePoint

Chapter 11: Customizing SharePoint with Apps

Introducing SharePoint Apps

Adding Apps to Your Site

Accessing App Settings

Configuring the General Settings

Developing a Custom App

Planning Your App

Creating Your App

Importing a Spreadsheet as an App

Taking Your App to the Next Level: Calculated and Lookup Columns

Keeping Track of Locations

Downloading Apps from the SharePoint Store

Chapter 12: Taking Control of Your Profile and Content

Organizing Your Personal Content with OneDrive

Expressing Yourself with Your Profile

Tracking Your Favorite Sites

Reaching Out with a Blog

Chapter 13: Organizing and Viewing Content

Working with Documents

Sharing Your Documents

Recovering Deleted Documents

Uploading Documents into a Folder

Discovering SharePoint Views

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

Chapter 14: Creating Workflows with Microsoft Flow

Understanding Workflow

Introducing Microsoft Flow

Using the Traditional SharePoint-Only Workflow

Getting Up to Speed on SharePoint Designer

Rediscovering the Out-of-the-Box Approval Workflow

Chapter 15: Getting Answers with Microsoft Forms

Signing into Microsoft Forms

Creating a Form in Microsoft Forms

Analyzing Microsoft Forms Data

Displaying a Form in SharePoint

Capturing Forms Data in SharePoint

Part 4: Becoming a SharePoint Administrator

Chapter 16: Building Business Apps with PowerApps

Introducing PowerApps

Using PowerApps on your Mobile Device

Embedding a PowerApp within a SharePoint Page

Viewing SharePoint Sites in a Web Browser on a Mobile Device

Chapter 17: Realizing You Are a SharePoint Administrator

Changing Your Site’s Basic Information

Finding Site Settings

Digging into Site Settings

Getting a High-Level View of SharePoint Features

Turning Features On and Off

Exploring Common Features

Extending SharePoint with Features

Changing the Look and Feel of Your Site

Checking Out SharePoint Metrics

Chapter 18: Configuring Site Navigation

Changing Team Site Navigation

Taking on Advanced Navigation

Configuring Static Navigation

Navigating with Web Parts

Understanding Managed Navigation

Chapter 19: Creating a Client or Partner Portal

Sharing a Site with External Guests

Inviting Guests Using Outlook Groups

Planning for Your Client or Guest Portal

Launching Your Portal

Creating a Public-Facing Website

Working with an Existing SharePoint Online Public-Facing Website

Chapter 20: Securing SharePoint

Using SharePoint Groups

Securing Apps, Folders, Documents, and Items

Granting Administrative Access

Viewing Site Permissions

Viewing Publishing Infrastructure Feature Site Permissions

Locking Down a Partner Portal

Permissions in SharePoint Online versus SharePoint On-Premises

Going Further with Custom Permissions

Part 5: Managing Enterprise Content

Chapter 21: Managing Content and the Content Lifecycle

Checking a Document In and Out

Configuring Content Approval

Digging into a SharePoint Records Center

Setting Up a Records Center

Using the Content Organizer

Managing Records in Place

Placing Records on Litigation Hold

Chapter 22: 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 23: Integrating with Power BI

Signing into Power BI

Installing the Power BI Desktop

Building Your First Power BI Report

Pulling Data into Power BI from SharePoint

Displaying a Power BI Report on a SharePoint Page

Part 6: The Part of Tens

Chapter 24: Ten Hot SharePoint 2019 Topics

Getting Up to Speed with SharePoint

SharePoint Online Videos

SharePoint Online Official Documentation

SharePoint Development

SharePoint Workflow

Taking SharePoint for a Spin

Staying Current: The SharePoint Blog

New On-Premises Features in SharePoint 2019

Plan for SharePoint

SharePoint from the Leader

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 Server 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

Index

About the Author

Connect with Dummies

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 11

TABLE 11-1 General Settings Configuration Options

TABLE 11-2 SharePoint Column Data Types

Chapter 18

TABLE 18-1 Typical Global Navigation Settings

Chapter 20

TABLE 20-1 Permission Levels

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

FIGURE 1-1: The main office.com landing page.

FIGURE 1-2: Choosing an Office 365 business plan.

FIGURE 1-3: Completing the sign-up process for the free trial.

FIGURE 1-4: The main Office 365 landing page.

FIGURE 1-5: The SharePoint landing page where you can create a new site.

FIGURE 1-6: Creating a new SharePoint site.

FIGURE 1-7: A new SharePoint team site.

FIGURE 1-8: There are many different ways to define SharePoint.

FIGURE 1-9: The dialog box used to select a website template when creating a Sha...

Chapter 2

FIGURE 2-1: The SharePoint platform runs in the Microsoft data center and is acc...

Chapter 3

FIGURE 3-1: Choosing a template on the New SharePoint Site screen.

FIGURE 3-2: Adding components to a new SharePoint page.

FIGURE 3-3: Publishing a new SharePoint page.

FIGURE 3-4: The Web Part Gallery in SharePoint 2019.

FIGURE 3-5: The Mobile Browser View feature in SharePoint 2019.

Chapter 4

FIGURE 4-1: Searching for the SharePoint app in the Apple App Store.

FIGURE 4-2: Searching for the SharePoint app in the Google Play store.

FIGURE 4-3: The SharePoint Mobile App sign-in screen.

FIGURE 4-4: The initial screen after signing into the SharePoint Mobile App for ...

FIGURE 4-5: The Frequent sites section of the Find screen.

FIGURE 4-6: The SharePoint 2019 For Dummies site.

FIGURE 4-7: The navigation menu on the SharePoint Mobile App.

FIGURE 4-8: The News tab on the SharePoint Mobile App.

FIGURE 4-9: The Me tab on the SharePoint Mobile App.

FIGURE 4-10: The Settings screen of the SharePoint Mobile App.

Chapter 5

FIGURE 5-1: Selecting SharePoint from the main office.com landing page.

FIGURE 5-2: The Frequent Sites page in SharePoint.

FIGURE 5-3: The main page of a SharePoint Team Site.

FIGURE 5-4: Adding a new document to a SharePoint Team Site.

FIGURE 5-5: Inviting people to a SharePoint site.

FIGURE 5-6: Sharing a SharePoint site by sending an email.

FIGURE 5-7: The Share icon on a SharePoint site on an iPhone.

FIGURE 5-8: Sharing a SharePoint site from an iPhone using the SharePoint Mobile...

FIGURE 5-9: The New drop-down menu.

FIGURE 5-10: The New SharePoint Site screen.

FIGURE 5-11: Setting permssions in the New SharePoint Site screen.

FIGURE 5-12: A new SharePoint site based on the Blog template.

FIGURE 5-13: Creating a site in the SharePoint Mobile App on an iPhone.

Chapter 6

FIGURE 6-1: Creating a new Site page from the New drop-down menu on a SharePoint...

FIGURE 6-2: Creating a new Site page from the Settings drop-down menu on a Share...

FIGURE 6-3: Opening the location where your page will be stored.

FIGURE 6-4: Fill in the details to create a new Web Part page.

FIGURE 6-5: The new Web Part page, ready for editing.

FIGURE 6-6: Use the ribbon to access menu commands.

FIGURE 6-7: Adding a Web Part to a Site page.

FIGURE 6-8: Selecting the Facebook Pages Web Part on a Site page.

FIGURE 6-9: The Web Part Gallery on the Web Part page in SharePoint.

FIGURE 6-10: Choosing which Web Part to filter.

FIGURE 6-11: Select the field that contains your filter values.

FIGURE 6-12: A filtered Web Part.

FIGURE 6-13: Manage Wiki pages with the Page tab of the ribbon.

FIGURE 6-14: Creating a Communications site in SharePoint Online.

FIGURE 6-15: Creating a new page using a Custom Page Design.

Chapter 7

FIGURE 7-1: An activity feed in the SharePoint Mobile App on an iPhone.

FIGURE 7-2: Dragging and dropping a document into SharePoint.

FIGURE 7-3: Uploading files into SharePoint using the Upload tab.

FIGURE 7-4: Uploading files using the SharePoint Mobile App.

FIGURE 7-5: Updating document properties using Quick Edit.

FIGURE 7-6: Creating a new document within a SharePoint Team site.

FIGURE 7-7: The SharePoint sites you frequently use shown in the SharePoint Mobi...

FIGURE 7-8: Selecting the Activity feed for a SharePoint site in the SharePoint ...

Chapter 8

FIGURE 8-1: Opening Microsoft Teams from the app menu in Office 365.

FIGURE 8-2: Choosing between using the Teams web app or desktop app.

FIGURE 8-3: Using the Microsoft Teams web app.

FIGURE 8-4: The Files tab in a Microsoft Teams channel.

FIGURE 8-5: The SharePoint site associated with a Microsoft Teams team.

FIGURE 8-6: The Teams wiki content in the associated SharePoint site.

FIGURE 8-7: Adding a new tab to a Teams channel.

FIGURE 8-8: Selecting SharePoint-based content for a new tab on a Teams channel.

FIGURE 8-9: Displaying a Word document directly in a Teams channel.

Chapter 9

FIGURE 9-1: Using the office.com screen to install the Office apps.

FIGURE 9-2: Viewing the Office products from the products.office.com page.

FIGURE 9-3: Choosing Office 365 SharePoint as a new cloud location in Excel.

FIGURE 9-4: Signing into your Office 365 account to add it as a cloud location.

FIGURE 9-5: Viewing SharePoint as a location to save a document.

FIGURE 9-6: Opening an Excel file directly from SharePoint.

FIGURE 9-7: Opening an Excel file stored in SharePoint.

FIGURE 9-8: The Save button in the Word app on an iPhone.

FIGURE 9-9: Choosing a SharePoint site to save a Word document from an iPhone.

FIGURE 9-10: Selecting the Documents library within a SharePoint site.

FIGURE 9-11: All your recent Word documents are located on the Recent tab.

Chapter 10

FIGURE 10-1: Click the star on a SharePoint site to follow the site.

FIGURE 10-2: Tap the star on the SharePoint Mobile App to follow a site.

FIGURE 10-3: News and activity from sites you follow appear on your SharePoint d...

FIGURE 10-4: News and activity from sites you follow appear on the News tab in t...

FIGURE 10-5: Selecting the Alert Me option in a SharePoint Documents app.

FIGURE 10-6: Creating a new alert for a SharePoint Documents app.

FIGURE 10-7: Managing your alerts for an entire SharePoint site.

FIGURE 10-8: Creating a news posting in a SharePoint site.

FIGURE 10-9: A Wiki page in Edit mode.

FIGURE 10-10: Editing a view to get to the RSS feed.

FIGURE 10-11: Clicking the RSS feed icon to display the feed URL.

FIGURE 10-12: Comments functionality on a SharePoint site.

Chapter 11

FIGURE 11-1: Add a new app to your SharePoint team site.

FIGURE 11-2: A Survey app on the Site Contents page.

FIGURE 11-3: Select Library Settings to change your library’s configuration.

FIGURE 11-4: The Library Settings or List Settings page.

FIGURE 11-5: A document’s context menu.

FIGURE 11-6: Configuring Advanced Settings.

FIGURE 11-7: Rating a document.

FIGURE 11-8: Selecting the Custom List app on the Your Apps page.

FIGURE 11-9: Add a new column to your list.

FIGURE 11-10: The Create Column page showing choices.

FIGURE 11-11: Entering a formula for list validation.

FIGURE 11-12: A user message appears when validation formula equals

FALSE

.

FIGURE 11-13: Hiding the Title column.

FIGURE 11-14: Cleaned spreadsheet ready for import into SharePoint.

FIGURE 11-15: Column settings for a calculated column.

FIGURE 11-16: Selecting a value from a lookup column.

FIGURE 11-17: Accessing the SharePoint Store from the Your Apps page.

Chapter 12

FIGURE 12-1: Accessing your OneDrive site.

FIGURE 12-2: The personal SharePoint storage location called OneDrive.

FIGURE 12-3: Creating a new document in OneDrive.

FIGURE 12-4: Your Profile page.

FIGURE 12-5: Updating your profile information.

FIGURE 12-6: The landing page for the Favorites page of the Delve app.

FIGURE 12-7: Access your blog from your Profile page.

FIGURE 12-8: Your personal blog in SharePoint.

Chapter 13

FIGURE 13-1: Selecting a document and viewing the ribbon.

FIGURE 13-2: Using the ellipsis context menu for a specific document.

FIGURE 13-3: Viewing the details of a particular document.

FIGURE 13-4: The properties page for a document.

FIGURE 13-5: Office Online displays Office files in the browser.

FIGURE 13-6: Restoring a document from the Recycle Bin.

FIGURE 13-7: Sharing a folder in an app.

FIGURE 13-8: Working with views.

FIGURE 13-9: Switching to a tile-based view.

FIGURE 13-10: Create a new view and select the columns you want to show.

FIGURE 13-11: Select the column to filter the view.

FIGURE 13-12: You can group items based on a shared value.

FIGURE 13-13: The Quick Edit button in the ribbon.

FIGURE 13-14: Using Quick Edit in an app.

FIGURE 13-15: You can change the format of the view.

FIGURE 13-16: The Gantt chart columns available in Gantt view.

Chapter 14

FIGURE 14-1: Opening Flow from the Office 365 apps menu in SharePoint.

FIGURE 14-2: The main Microsoft Flow page.

FIGURE 14-3: The Approvals page for Microsoft Flow.

FIGURE 14-4: The Flow templates that relate to SharePoint.

FIGURE 14-5: The data flow for a custom email workflow.

FIGURE 14-6: The permissions for a custom email workflow.

FIGURE 14-7: Selecting a SharePoint site and List app for a Flow-based workflow.

FIGURE 14-8: The navigational section of SharePoint Designer.

FIGURE 14-9: Activating the out-of-the-box approval workflows.

Chapter 15

FIGURE 15-1: Signing into Microsoft Forms.

FIGURE 15-2: Creating a new form in Microsoft Forms.

FIGURE 15-3: Adding questions to a form.

FIGURE 15-4: A simple SharePoint Survey form in Microsoft Forms.

FIGURE 15-5: Viewing form responses.

FIGURE 15-6: The Share screen for a form.

FIGURE 15-7: Selecting the Microsoft Forms Web Part.

FIGURE 15-8: Configuring the Microsoft Forms Web Part.

Chapter 16

FIGURE 16-1: The main PowerApps page.

FIGURE 16-2: Creating a new PowerApp for a SharePoint list.

FIGURE 16-3: Providing a name for a PowerApp.

FIGURE 16-4: When new PowerApp is created from a SharePoint list we can preview ...

FIGURE 16-5: Create a new SharePoint list item from a PowerApp.

FIGURE 16-6: Viewing a SharePoint list that contains items created from a PowerA...

FIGURE 16-7: Clicking the File tab in PowerApps Studio.

FIGURE 16-8: A PowerApp embedded in a SharePoint page.

FIGURE 16-9: The Views section of a List-based app.

Chapter 17

FIGURE 17-1: Opening the Site Settings page.

FIGURE 17-2: The Site Settings page in SharePoint.

FIGURE 17-3: The Site Settings page in SharePoint with the SharePoint Server Pub...

FIGURE 17-4: Active and inactive SharePoint features.

FIGURE 17-5: The Change the Look settings page.

FIGURE 17-6: Changing settings on a particular look.

FIGURE 17-7: Previewing a particular look for your site.

Chapter 18

FIGURE 18-1: Expand the left navigation pane on smaller screens.

FIGURE 18-2: The Tree View/Navigation Elements page is used to enable or disable...

FIGURE 18-3: Adding links to the Quick Links Web Part.

FIGURE 18-4: Adding the docs.microsoft.com link.

FIGURE 18-5: The details pane for a link in the Quick Links Web Part.

FIGURE 18-6: The result of adding a link to the Quick Links Web Part on the home...

FIGURE 18-7: Current navigation options.

FIGURE 18-8: View the navigation hierarchy.

FIGURE 18-9: Adding a new heading to your current navigation.

FIGURE 18-10: Your item appears in the navigation hierarchy.

Chapter 19

FIGURE 19-1: Selecting Site Permissions for the Settings menu.

FIGURE 19-2: Choosing the option to invite people to the site.

FIGURE 19-3: Entering an email address of the person to invite to the site.

FIGURE 19-4: The email address is added to the dialog.

FIGURE 19-5: Receiving a SharePoint invite in Gmail.

FIGURE 19-6: Signing in to access a shared SharePoint site.

FIGURE 19-7: Adding a user to the Outlook group for your SharePoint site.

FIGURE 19-8: Microsoft’s website hosting partners.

FIGURE 19-9: Getting started with a GoDaddy website from the Office 365 admin ce...

FIGURE 19-10: Choosing a website plan from GoDaddy with the Microsoft discount.

FIGURE 19-11: Getting started with a Wix-based public website.

Chapter 20

FIGURE 20-1: The Site Permissions dialog box is used to add users to the site.

FIGURE 20-2: The advanced permissions page for a SharePoint site.

FIGURE 20-3: Click Share for a document in a Library app.

FIGURE 20-4: Select the permissions for the link you will send.

FIGURE 20-5: The View Site Collection Permissions window.

FIGURE 20-6: View a user’s permissions to the current site.

FIGURE 20-7: View the site’s permission assignments.

FIGURE 20-8: View permission levels.

FIGURE 20-9: Creating a new permission level.

Chapter 21

FIGURE 21-1: Checking out a document in SharePoint.

FIGURE 21-2: A checked-out document shows a check-out arrow.

FIGURE 21-3: The Draft Item Security settings change after you select Yes under ...

FIGURE 21-4: The new document is in Pending status until approved.

FIGURE 21-5: Opening the dialog to approve a new document.

FIGURE 21-6: The Approve/Reject window.

FIGURE 21-7: Creating a new information management policy.

FIGURE 21-8: Selecting the Information Management Policy Settings link.

FIGURE 21-9: Adding a retention stage.

FIGURE 21-10: The Records Center home page.

FIGURE 21-11: The Content Organizer rules page.

FIGURE 21-12: Controlling in-place records declaration.

FIGURE 21-13: Declaring a record in-place.

FIGURE 21-14: Managing holds and eDiscovery at the site collection level.

FIGURE 21-15: Configuring eDiscovery and placing items on hold.

Chapter 22

FIGURE 22-1: The Search text box on a SharePoint site.

FIGURE 22-2: The search results page.

FIGURE 22-3: An Office Word document in the search results page.

FIGURE 22-4: Selecting Local SharePoint Results from the Manage Query Rules page...

FIGURE 22-5: The Add Promoted Result dialog box.

FIGURE 22-6: The Add Result Block dialog box.

FIGURE 22-7: The search results page with a marketing/sales query rule.

FIGURE 22-8: Removing the contents of an app from SharePoint search results.

FIGURE 22-9: Selecting a Search Center template when creating a new site.

FIGURE 22-10: Configure search settings.

Chapter 23

FIGURE 23-1: The Power BI workspace.

FIGURE 23-2: Downloading the Power BI Desktop app.

FIGURE 23-3: Signing into the Power BI Desktop app with your Office 365 credenti...

FIGURE 23-4: Getting data and finding the visualizations components in the Power...

FIGURE 23-5: Adding simple test data for our first Power BI report.

FIGURE 23-6: A simple Power BI report using months and sums.

FIGURE 23-7: Viewing a Power BI report using a web browser.

FIGURE 23-8: Choosing a data source in the Power BI Desktop.

FIGURE 23-9: Loading data from a SharePoint Library app into the Power BI Deskto...

FIGURE 23-10: Choosing the Power BI Web Part to add to a SharePoint page.

FIGURE 23-11: Rendering a Power BI report in SharePoint.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

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Introduction

Microsoft SharePoint took the world by storm in the 2000s and then didn’t seem to change a whole lot in the 2010s. And now, Microsoft has stepped on the accelerator again, and SharePoint is off to the races with new features and experiences. Shifting development to a cloud-first strategy, Microsoft has put the online versions of the product in the forefront.

This book covers SharePoint Online as of the calendar year 2019 and also covers the SharePoint Server 2019 product itself. You can think of SharePoint Server 2019 as a snapshot of SharePoint Online that is designed to be installed by large IT departments at your organization. SharePoint Online, on the other hand, is the online service–based version of SharePoint that Microsoft delivers to you over the Internet. SharePoint Online is constantly changing. SharePoint Server is a glimpse of SharePoint Online at a specific point in time.

It is important to note that if your organization uses an on-premises version of SharePoint, you need to check what version you are running. On-premises means your IT team members have installed the software and they are the ones who manage it for you. It’s common for an organization to be running an older version of SharePoint when it is installed on-premises. So be sure to check what version you are running. Past versions of SharePoint On-Premises include SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2013, and SharePoint Server 2016.

If your organization is running SharePoint Online, then you automatically have the latest version of SharePoint and this book is for you. If your organization is running, or planning to run, SharePoint Server 2019, then this book is for you, too.

Microsoft understands that people are attached to their smartphones, and as such, they created a SharePoint Mobile App to accommodate everyone. The SharePoint Mobile App is covered throughout the book and is a new addition to SharePoint. In addition to the SharePoint Mobile App, you will also find new service integration for creating workflows using Microsoft Flow (Chapter 14), building forms with Microsoft Forms (Chapter 15), building your own mobile-based apps with PowerApps (Chapter 16), and creating data dashboards with Power BI (Chapter 23). All of these are new since the last edition of this book. Don’t let the complexity of these types of features fool you. SharePoint is intended to be a self-service environment, and this book helps you get the most out of the platform without the need for years of experience.

We’re not saying that SharePoint is easy; in fact, like any enterprise software system, you can expect to have a bit of a learning curve. However, if your organization uses SharePoint Server 2019 or SharePoint Online, you have a wealth of solutions to solve your particular needs, and you don’t need a degree in computers to do it.

About This Book

This book is intended for anyone who encounters SharePoint or is curious about using the product. SharePoint is a vast software application with many nooks and crannies, and no single book can cover everything. This book is designed to provide an introduction and an overview of the platform. It shows you how to get the most out of the product, whether you have never used SharePoint 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 SharePoint Server for your organization. However, this book helps you understand what features your end users may want to see in SharePoint and how you can make it happen.

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 Online or SharePoint Server 2019.

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 try to install SharePoint yourself for on-premises environments, a trial license is 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 stubs. 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 site that you can explore. Another alternative is to use SharePoint Online. (Yes, you can buy a single license.)

Icons Used in This Book

A handful of icons are used in this book. 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 For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.

Where to Go from Here

All right, you’re all set and ready to jump into the 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, turn 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

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.

See how SharePoint Online has changed the game and what it means to use a cloud-based solution, and learn when you should use SharePoint Online or SharePoint On-Premises.

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

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 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 a web-based software platform that is definitely capable of doing lots of things — more 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.

Up and Running with SharePoint in Three Minutes Flat

It is human nature to learn things by exploring and it is no different with software. You could read a hundred books about SharePoint and still barely understand what exactly it is and what it does. Our thinking is that there is no better way to get to know SharePoint than to get up and running with it, clicking buttons to see what they do.

With SharePoint Online you can get up and running with a trial in minutes. SharePoint Online comes bundled with Office 365. The easiest way to get started is to sign up for a free trial of Office 365. Here’s how:

Open your favorite web browser and go towww.office.com.

The Office 365 Home page appears, as shown in Figure 1-1.

Click the red button that says “Get Office.”

To get SharePoint, you will need a business plan subscription.

Click the For Business tab to see the available business plans.

In the table that appears, you will see that the Office 365 Business Essentials plan comes with the SharePoint service and is $5 per month (see Figure 1-2). We prefer using the latest Office clients like Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint, so we will choose the Office 365 Business Premium plan.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the “Try for free” link.

A welcome screen appears that asks for your information.

Walk through the wizard, providing your information as needed, in order to get up and running with Office 365 and SharePoint Online.

FIGURE 1-1: The main office.com landing page.

FIGURE 1-2: Choosing an Office 365 business plan.

Note that as a business name you can just use your own name and choose that your business size is 1 person. You will then choose a domain name, which is <your choice>.onmicrosoft.com. This is your Office 365 domain. In our example, we chose sp2019fd.onmicrosoft.com for our domain. You can always add a custom domain later if you prefer. For example, we might connect sharepoint2019fordummies.com to our Office 365 account and get emails there, too.

Once you have filled out the information, your free trial will be created, as shown in Figure 1-3. This can take a few minutes. Once it is created, you will be given a link to go to your Office 365 dashboard.

FIGURE 1-3: Completing the sign-up process for the free trial.

When you first land on your Office 365 dashboard, you will see a quick tutorial and then be presented with the Office 365 main landing page, as shown in Figure 1-4. (If you want to learn more about Office 365, we recommend checking out Office 365 For Dummies, 3rd Edition.) In this case we are focused on SharePoint, so let's crack it open and get started.

Click the SharePoint icon in the Apps section of your dashboard.

Because this is the first time you are opening SharePoint Online, you will be presented with a quick tutorial. After you finish the tutorial, you will be presented with a welcome screen for SharePoint and an easy way to create your first site, create a post, or install the SharePoint Mobile App. Right now, we just want to create our very own SharePoint site.

Click the “Create site” link at the top of the page, as shown in Figure1-5.

You will be given a choice: create a team site or create a Communications site. Chapter 5 explores the different types of sites. For now, the team site will suit our purpose.

Choose team site and give the new site a name.

The dialog box that appears provides a group email alias for the site and shows you the URL you will use to access the SharePoint team site. You can also provide a description and set basic privacy settings (see Figure 1-6).

Click Finish in the next dialog box that appears.

In this dialog box, you are able to add any additional owners or members of the team site. In our case, we are the only user of our new Office 365 subscription right now.

FIGURE 1-4: The main Office 365 landing page.

FIGURE 1-5: The SharePoint landing page where you can create a new site.

FIGURE 1-6: Creating a new SharePoint site.

Congratulations! Just like that you are up and running with your very own SharePoint site (see Figure 1-7). Feel free to start clicking around and exploring it, or wait until you read about various functionality through the book.

FIGURE 1-7: A new SharePoint team site.

You can always get back to your Office 365 dashboard and your SharePoint site by opening your web browser and going to www.office.com and logging in with the user you created.

If you are using SharePoint Server 2019, your IT team has likely installed SharePoint at your office location. Since the installation is at your local company premises instead of in a Microsoft data center somewhere, the term for this version is aptly called on-premises. If your organization is using SharePoint on-premises, your IT team will have likely created your SharePoint site for you and sent you a link to access it. (You find out more about the differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premises in Chapter 2.)

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. Best yet, Microsoft supports the browser and doesn’t care what operating system you are using. Prefer to use a Mac? No problem. Is Linux your thing? SharePoint is supported.

No, really, what is SharePoint?

Maybe you’re a whiz at Microsoft 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 2019 with Office 2019, you can create your own mobile apps with PowerApps, create an online gallery of PowerPoint slides, display interactive spreadsheets in web pages, create rich forms with Microsoft Forms, surface data from all over the Internet into dashboards using Power BI, and reuse information from your company’s databases in Word documents just to name a few. You can even use SharePoint right from Microsoft Teams without ever realizing you are using SharePoint. We cover all of these scenarios throughout the book.

Officially, Microsoft represents SharePoint 2019 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. It integrates with Power BI and lets you create insightful dashboards from data all over your organization and the Internet (not just SharePoint).

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.

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 and has many prepackaged solutions you can use right out of the box without any customizations at all.

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. You can bring this same concept to mobile devices with the SharePoint Mobile App and PowerApps.

A Microsoft product

SharePoint is a software product that Microsoft develops and sells to customers. If you followed along and created an Office 365 Business Premium account, you will eventually have to pay Microsoft $12.50 per month in order to continue using it. If you choose the Office 365 Business Essentials plan, you will get SharePoint, but not the Office clients, and will pay $5 per month. Regardless of how you purchase and use SharePoint, you can rest assured that your organization is paying Microsoft a licensing fee. In other words, SharePoint isn’t free.

In the past, SharePoint was a considerable cost for an organization wanting to adopt it. In addition to buying all of the licenses for your organization, you would also need an IT team to install and manage it. For this reason, SharePoint used to be considered enterprise-class software, as only large organizations could afford it. This has all changed. In the first few minutes of reading this book you have already gotten up and running with SharePoint. In the past, it would have taken months for a giant IT project to get SharePoint up and running. You just did it in minutes!

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 1-8.

FIGURE 1-8: 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 who 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 who 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 who 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, we 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 who 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.

Taking a Peek at a SharePoint Site

The primary purpose of SharePoint is to provide websites to members of an organization or employees of a company. 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 1-9 shows the different templates available.

FIGURE 1-9: 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, if the publishing feature is active, then you will also see Publishing. If you are looking for a template that doesn’t appear in the list of templates, you will need to figure out which SharePoint feature makes the template available. SharePoint features are explored in more detail in Chapter 17.

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 template you used at the beginning of this chapter). The Team Site template includes features such as a discussion board, a library to store documents, and a calendar. In fact, many books simply talk about the Team Site template and call that SharePoint. As you learn in this book, the Team Site template is very important, but it is just another SharePoint website template. Part 3 explores building and customizing a site based on the Team Site template.

TECHNICAL DIVE INTO THE SHAREPOINT BUILDING BLOCKS

To obtain a perspective on SharePoint, it is important to understand how SharePoint is put together. As mentioned in this chapter, 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.