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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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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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
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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)
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
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
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.
Cover
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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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
