Booking meetings

Sometimes, a situation requires all group members to come together to discuss their ideas. Meetings provide you with that platform. The meetings that you set appear in your calendar as a group meeting, alongside your personal meetings. The following are the instructions for how to book a group meeting.

Getting ready

You will have access to the group calendar if you are a group member. You can book group-specific meetings or group events using the group calendar.

How to do it…

On Outlook Web Access, you can see all the Microsoft 365 Groups that you are part of in the lower left-hand side navigation section. To book a meeting, follow these steps:

1. Select the group and click on the Calendar icon:

   

   Figure S3.24: Access the group calendar

2. The screen will look as shown in the following screenshot:

   

   Figure S3.25: View the group calendar

3. To book a new meeting, click on the New event button on the top left of the screen. Specify the event information, including the...

Sharing files

Every group needs to collaborate by sharing digital assets. These can be images, documents, spreadsheets, or presentations. Uploading files to your group is always better than adding attachments to an email because email creates duplicate copies of the same file. In a group, you can share files and maintain versions of the files when they are edited. You can also restore files if they are deleted by a member.

Getting ready

Every Microsoft 365 Group has a SharePoint site associated with it. All the group files are saved in the SharePoint database in one or more document libraries. Every group member has "contribute" access to the files.

How to do it...

On Outlook Web Access, you can see all the Microsoft 365 Groups that you are part of in the lower left-hand side navigation section. To share files, do the following:

1. Select the group and click on the Files icon. This displays all the files stored in SharePoint's default Documents library:

   

   Figure S3.30:...

Collaborating on a notebook

Microsoft 365 provides a note-taking application to capture notes during meetings. OneNote lets you capture ideas in any form, including typed text, a link, an image, an embedded video, or even handwritten text. To collaborate on a writeup, follow the instructions in the next section.

Getting ready

Microsoft OneNote is primarily a note-taking application. Its simple user interface allows it to be used as a canvas or a notebook. It supports both handwriting and typed text. In OneNote, users can create notes that include text, tables, pictures, and drawings. You can add links to your notes with a web page, a link to Office documents, and more. Your work is automatically saved as you go along.

OneNote offers a very good platform for channeling your creativity. As a member of the Microsoft 365 group, you get access to a team notebook, which lets you create and share team notes and capture team meeting minutes.

How to do it...

The notes in OneNote can be organized...

Adding a web part

Web parts are the smallest building blocks of a page. Each web part is a self-contained widget that lets you add text, images, files, videos, and other dynamically generated content to your page. This content can exist within your Microsoft 365 environment or can even exist externally.

In this example, we will add a news web part to our recently created page. This news web part will show a summary of all the news items within the current SharePoint site or from other SharePoint sites within your tenant.

At the time of writing, it has recently been announced that the editing experience for SharePoint pages will be upgraded. So, the content described in this section may be different to what you will experience. Unfortunately, no further details are currently available.

As mentioned in the preface, it is common for cloud platforms to undergo changes over time. That said, the underlying concepts covered in this chapter will stay the same.

Getting ready...

Adding an app

You can extend the functionality of your SharePoint site by adding apps to it. Just like the apps on a mobile device, SharePoint apps are ready-to-use standalone widgets or applications that help address specific business needs. You can add apps that your organization might have developed in-house, or you can add apps from the SharePoint Store.

In this recipe, we will learn how to add an app from the SharePoint Store.

Getting ready

You need to have Owner or Full Control access to the site you would like to add the app to.

How to do it...

To add an app from the SharePoint Store, follow these steps:

1. Browse to the home page of your site.
2. Click New from the page editing menu and then click App, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 3.23: Menu navigation for adding an app

3. Doing so will take you to the Apps you can add screen of the My apps page. Here, you can view a list of apps that your organization has...

Modifying the top navigation

When you create a new communication site or register a site as a hub, SharePoint creates a navigation menu at the top of the site. This menu is called the global navigation menu. You can use this menu to help your site’s users quickly navigate to the different pages within your site or outside it.

In this recipe, we will learn how to modify the site’s global navigation menu.

Getting ready

Global navigation is only available for communications sites (or a communications site registered as a hub).

You can edit items in the global navigation menu as an owner or member of that site.

Additionally, you will need Owner access or be granted Full Control or Design permissions for your site to change other properties of the global navigation.

How to do it...

To update the global navigation on your site, follow these steps:

1. Browse to any page within the site.
2. Click the Edit link at the end of the top navigation...

Modifying the left navigation

When you create a new team site, SharePoint also creates a navigation menu toward the left of the page. This menu is called the Quick Launch menu. The purpose of the Quick Launch menu is to help the users of your team site quickly get to the different areas within your site.

In this recipe, we will learn how to modify the Quick Launch menu on your site and how to add a link to an existing list within the site.

Getting ready

The Quick Launch menu is only available for team sites (or a team site registered as a hub).

You can edit items in the Quick Launch menu as an owner or member of that site.

Additionally, you will need Owner access or be granted Full Control or Design permissions for your site to change other properties of the Quick Launch menu.

How to do it...

You can follow these steps to edit items in the Quick Launch menu of your site:

1. Browse to any page on your team site:

Figure 3.40: Edit...

Viewing and changing site settings

You can view and modify your site settings and properties after it’s created.

In this recipe, we will learn how to view and change the basic information of a site, such as its title, description, or logo. We will also learn how to change the advanced settings of a site, such as changing the time zone for the site.

Getting ready

Which settings you are allowed to change depends on your permissions within the site. Member access or the Edit and Design permission levels allow you to change certain features, such as the ability to edit site navigation and the site theme. Owner access or the Full Control permission level gives you the greatest control over various site settings.

This recipe assumes that you have Owner or Full Control access to the site.

How to do it...

To change the time zone that your site uses for the date/time fields:

1. Browse to the site for which you would like to change the settings.
...

Determining and revoking permissions for a site

SharePoint lets you view who has access to your site and what level of access they have.

This recipe will show you how to determine the level of access that a user may have to your site. We will also learn how to use SharePoint permissions management to revoke permissions for an existing user of the site.

Getting ready

You will need at least Read access to the site where you’d like to check user permissions. You will need Full Control access to be able to view advanced permissions or revoke user permissions on your site.

For this recipe, we will assume that you have Full Control access to the site where you’d like to check permissions.

How to do it...

To view and update user permissions on a site, browse to your site and follow these steps:

1. Click on the Settings gear icon in the top-right corner.
2. Click Site permissions, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 3...

Creating a subsite

SharePoint lets you create subsites under existing sites. Subsites are useful when you want to organize content through a subset of lists, libraries, or pages but the audience that will have access to this content is the same as or a subset of the users of the parent site. For example, a large organization might have a site for the HR department, and they are likely to have a payroll subsite within it for a small set of members that help manage the organization’s payroll.

This recipe shows you how to create a subsite using the modern team site template.

Getting ready

You need Full Control access to the site that you would like to create the new subsite for.

How to do it...

To create a subsite, follow these steps:

1. Browse to the site that you would like to create the subsite for.
2. Click on the Settings gear icon in the top-right corner and then Site contents.
3. Click New and then Subsite.
4. On the New SharePoint Site...