Introduction to SharePoint Online

SharePoint Online is part of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem that facilitates collaboration and productivity in organizations by empowering its users with tools to create and share content. At its core, SharePoint is a content management system that gives its users places, such as sites, lists, and libraries, where they can create and store documents and data. It also lets its users collaborate on this content by allowing it to be securely shared with others within or outside the organization. Users are also able to securely find this content through the powerful Microsoft Search capability.

Additionally, SharePoint enables an organization to effectively communicate through rich pages, engaging tools, and web parts. We will go over these areas in more detail throughout the book, first introducing them in Chapter 3, Modern Sites in SharePoint Online.

SharePoint integrates well with a lot of other tools within and outside of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem...

Getting to the SharePoint start page

The SharePoint start page is the central location that shows you relevant content from all the SharePoint sites that you have access to in your organization. From here, you can easily get to the sites that you are following, frequently visit, or have recently visited. This page also lets you search for content across all the SharePoint sites that you may have access to.

This recipe shows you how to log in to Microsoft 365 and then browse to the SharePoint Online home page from there.

Getting ready

To be able to browse to the SharePoint start page, your organization should have purchased one of the Microsoft 365 products that contain SharePoint. In addition, they should have assigned you a license to use SharePoint Online.

How to do it...

You can follow these steps to access the SharePoint Online home page:

1. Browse to www.office.com and click the Sign in button.
2. Log in using your email ID and password.
3. You...

Creating a modern site

SharePoint provides various templates or site types so that you can create sites. These templates use similar building blocks but create slightly different sites in the end that help target different collaboration and communication goals. These templates differ from each other in various ways, such as how they store information, how they present it, and even the features that they offer.

This recipe shows you how to create a site using the Team site template, which is the most commonly used site template for team collaboration.

Getting ready

Your organization should do the following before you can create sites from the SharePoint start page:

• Grant you access to SharePoint as part of the Microsoft 365 suite
• Enable the creation of sites from the SharePoint start page
• Enable the creation of modern sites in your Microsoft 365 environment

How to do it...

To create a new site from the SharePoint start page, follow these...

Viewing site contents

The Site contents page in SharePoint provides a one-stop view of all the lists, libraries, and other apps within the site. Any subsites within that site will also appear here. Provided you have appropriate access, you can also add new lists, libraries, pages, apps, and subsites to the site from this page.

Getting ready

You should have at least Read or View access to a site in order to be able to view the contents within that site.

How to do it...

To view the contents of your site, follow these steps:

1. Browse to your site in SharePoint.
2. Click on the settings icon in the top-right corner of any page on the site and then click Site contents, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.15: Opening the site settings to reach the Site contents page

3. You will be directed to the Site contents page, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.16: Viewing Site contents from Site settings > Site...

Creating a list

A SharePoint list is a table-like container that stores information similar to an Excel spreadsheet or a database table. A key difference between Excel files or database tables and lists is that the information in lists is automatically shared with and available to other users that have access to those lists.

This recipe shows you how to create a new list from scratch. For illustrative purposes, we will use this list to store details of the products from our company’s product line. This list will contain the following columns to store the product information:

• Title
• Code Name
• Product Line
• Date Released
• Notes

Getting ready

You will need either Edit, Design, or Full Control permission on the site where you’d like to create the list. You will usually have this permission if you are part of the Site owners or Site members groups for the site where you would like to create the list.

How to do it...

...

Adding an item to a list

You can add items to lists in various ways. This recipe will show the most used method to add items to the representative list we created as part of the previous recipe. The other methods to add list items will be covered in greater detail in Chapter 4, Lists and Libraries in SharePoint Online. Even though this recipe uses the Products list as an example, the steps provided here can be used to add items to any list.

Getting ready

You will need Contribute permissions or higher for the list you would like to add the new item to. You will usually have this permission if you are part of the Site owners or Site members groups for the site containing the list.

How to do it...

To add a new item to a list, follow these steps:

1. Browse to the list where you’d like to add the new item.

   You can also access the lists and libraries through the Site contents page. The Viewing site contents recipe earlier in this chapter shows...

Creating a document library

A library is a secure place in SharePoint where you can upload, create, edit, and manage files for online sharing and collaboration with your team. Just like lists, each library comes with key built-in columns that automatically store default information about each file, such as who created the file and when, and who last modified it and when. You can always add your own columns to the library, just as you would for a list. Each SharePoint site ships with one or more libraries to enable you to store files within the site. Libraries can be of different types. A document library is the most used type of library. As the name suggests, it is used to store, manage, and share documents. The Site pages library is used to store and manage pages and news items. The Inbuilt list and library templates topic of the Creating a list using a built-in list template recipe in Chapter 4, Lists and Libraries in SharePoint Online, provides a list of all the inbuilt templates...

Uploading documents to a library

SharePoint lets you create new documents directly within a library through the New menu. It also lets you upload documents that have been authored offline.

In this recipe, we are going to learn how to upload an existing document to a document library and then associate metadata to it. Even though this recipe uses the Marketing Collateral library, which we previously created as an example, the steps here work for any SharePoint library.

Getting ready

You will need Contribute permissions or higher to the library where you would like to upload the document. You will usually have this permission if you are part of the Site owners or Site members groups for the site containing the library.

How to do it...

Here’s how to upload a document to your document library:

1. Browse to the library where you’d like to upload the document.
2. Click Upload and then choose the Files option to open the file selection dialog...

Deleting and restoring a file

In this recipe, you will learn how to delete a SharePoint document and then restore it from your site’s recycle bin.

Getting ready

You will need to be able to access a document library in a SharePoint site for which you have at least Contribute permission or higher. You will usually have this permission if you are part of the Site owners or Site members groups for the site containing the library.

How to do it...

To delete a file:

1. Select the ellipsis (…) next to a file, then Delete.

Figure 2.40: Deleting a file from an item’s context menu

2. Confirm the deletion on the pop-up dialog by selecting Delete. Watch for the status notification in the upper-right corner letting you know the file was successfully deleted:

   

   Figure 2.41: Deletion notification

   To restore a file:

3. Select Recycle Bin from the left-hand navigation menu (team sites only) or follow the Viewing...

Sharing a document

Once you’ve uploaded your document to SharePoint Online, you can simply use Share or Copy link to easily share it with your colleagues. This recipe shows you how to share a link to a document using the Share feature.

Getting ready

You should have at least Read access to the document you’d like to share.

How to do it...

To share a document with a member of your team, follow these steps:

1. Browse to the document you’d like to share.
2. Click the Share (Share option on the top menu bar, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.49: Icon for sharing an item on the right of the item name

3. On the pop-up box that appears, click the gear icon on the right of the filename to open Sharing settings:

Figure 2.50: Opening Sharing settings with the icon to the right of the filename

4. This will open the Sharing settings dialog, which allows you to select one of the following options...

Searching content

Search is a core part of the SharePoint user experience. It enables users to find relevant business information and documents more quickly and easily than ever before.

For this recipe, I am going to act as a marketing manager who would like to search for our visual design guide, which I remember is called “Branding Elements.”

Getting ready

All you need is Read access to the site where you will be performing your search. The results that SharePoint returns are security trimmed, which means you will only see content that you have access to through direct or indirect permissions.

How to do it...

To perform a search within a site, follow these steps:

1. Browse to any page on the site where you’d like to perform the search. In our example, I will browse to my Sales and Marketing site.
2. Start typing your search keywords to see the relevant results. In this case, we will start typing Branding Elements. We’ll notice...