Chapter 8: Microsoft SharePoint Online (SPO)

Microsoft SharePoint Online (SPO) gives companies using the platform the ability to control access to information and automate workflow processes across business units. You can use SPO to create websites, as a secure place to store, organize, and share content from any device.

SPO is a product that was designed to be a communication, document, and internal information hub, connecting users to data through integration with all the other Microsoft 365 applications.

If you have used Microsoft Teams, all documents and pages inside Teams are stored inside SharePoint. We need to understand what else can be done with this powerful tool.

We will cover the following key topics in this chapter:

• Using view list formatting – a way to analyze data
• Field formatting – adding beautiful and functional features to data
• How to use standard web parts to make better portals
• Ensuring that documents are organized
...

Technical requirements

To get started, we recommend you use a SharePoint site as a developer environment. It can be a communication or a team site; both have the same structure.

Using view list formatting

SharePoint view lists are a concept that has followed the SharePoint structure since the very beginning and is the way that we display our data from lists and libraries to end users and administrators.

Introduction to SharePoint list and library views

Views add a dimension to SharePoint content so that you can find the right piece of data when you need it without having to dig through hundreds of items. With views, you can use filters, grouping, sorting, and styling to display data.

Views are quite a powerful tool that enables you to make SharePoint data more coherent and understandable.

What is list view formatting?

View list formatting is the new engine created by Microsoft to allow power users to customize a view's layout without the need for a programming language or complex customization involving code.

It uses JSON object formatting to add a different view and styling to list items for end users and is only supported in SharePoint...

Using field list formatting

SharePoint list fields can be defined as columns in a table (SharePoint lists) and have different types to receive data from entries. This is a concept that has existed in SharePoint since the very beginning.

With modern SharePoint, introduced in SharePoint Online, Microsoft has included more visual features in this important concept called field list formatting.

It follows the same principles of view list formatting, using the JSON format to get better data visualization, but in this case, we will display only a column differently, instead of the whole list.

One important thing to say is that field list formatting does not change the data inside lists; it only changes how this data is displayed to users and is enabled for everyone who has access to the list where field formatting was applied.

How to use field list formatting

You can easily start using field list formatting by clicking in the column context menu, navigating to Column settings...

Using standard web parts

Web parts are useful components or building blocks created to enable end users to add different types of features to their portals.

You can add text, images, files, video, dynamic content, and much more with the standard web parts available for all sites.

Tip

A great thing about web parts is that your developer team can also build custom web parts as per your business requirements.

In modern SharePoint, web parts are placed inside page sections, which can be viewed and changed when editing a page.

In the edit mode of a SharePoint page, by clicking on the add button inside a section, a popup will be displayed for you, where you can find all the web parts available.

Figure 8.4 – Adding a web part

Tip

Using web parts inside pages gives you a way to improve the user's experience and add more value to your company's portals.

Using standard web parts will give more power to your collaboration and improve...

Ensuring that documents are organized

SharePoint is one of the best platforms for storing and managing documents because it not only has a place to store them but a set of features to help us manage and also find data in those documents.

However, a common question and scenario that you might face in your organization is how to keep all these documents organized. Should you use multiple libraries on one huge site? Should you have multiple team sites and multiple libraries on it? Should you use the default library created by default on the SharePoint site? Should you separate files into folders?

All these questions do not have a straight, unique answer, but we would like to share with you some tips to ensure that your documents are organized:

• Use metadata in document libraries: By creating columns and setting the values for your files, you can improve the organization of your documents, achieving something that is not possible in Windows Explorer in general – there...

Using tags for files

A great way to organize your files and render them locatable by your end users is to tag them using customized fields on lists and libraries.

You can implement this content strategy in different ways, but I would like to spend more time talking about one in particular, the one that uses a Metadata/Taxonomy field in the list or library.

A taxonomy is an area where an organization can define lists of related terms that help it to organize or categorize data.

In SharePoint, the taxonomy terminology is known as Term Store, a place in SharePoint Central Administration where you can organize a group of terms (called term sets) and manage the terms.

Metadata can be managed in the following areas:

• Term Store: This is a place where you can manage enterprise terms.
• Term sets: Predefined lists of applicable terms—vocabularies, such as states, locations, jurisdictions, and projects.
• Terms: Applied to content through managed...

SharePoint alerts

A great feature available in SharePoint that people usually forget about, or are simply not familiar with, is the SharePoint alerts that can be defined in lists and libraries.

You can predefine email notifications to yourself or other users that are sent by SharePoint when something changes.

Note

For some scenarios, this might be a better approach when sending notifications, rather than using Power Automate, since it does not require any other licensing or configuration outside of SharePoint.

You can set up alerts that will be sent under the following circumstances:

• For all changes
• When new items are added
• When existing items are modified
• When items are deleted

You can also configure filters to be applied to alerts, making sure that the pre-defined users are notified when the filter criteria are matched:

• Anything changes
• Someone else changes an item
• Someone else changes an item created by me
• Someone else changes...

Creating lists from Excel sheets

When you start moving "legacy" applications created using Excel spreadsheets in your company to a system-designed platform such as SharePoint, you may realize that you need to create a bunch of lists and fields for each spreadsheet.

It can take a lot of time and effort for your team and could discourage or slow down the digital transformation.

To help with this movement to SharePoint, Microsoft has designed a way to create a SharePoint list based on an Excel spreadsheet, facilitating this process.

When creating a list, you can select From Excel.

Figure 8.8 – Creating a list menu

A new form will be displayed where you need to upload your Excel spreadsheet that will generate the new list on SharePoint.

Figure 8.9 – Selecting the Excel file to upload

Notes and Tips

If the Upload file button is grayed out, you don't have permission to create a list from a spreadsheet...

Using calculated fields

Working with SharePoint data, you are probably using the standard type of columns (single line of text, multiline of text, number, choice, and suchlike).

These kinds of columns fit best with most scenarios that we face on a daily basis, but we have another type of column available in SharePoint that gives us powerful features.

A calculated field is a special type of column that will allow for the value of this field to be based on another value/field from the same item.

This type of column uses Excel-like syntax to calculate values using values from other columns and generate the value itself.

You could, for example, use a date field to calculate the expiration date by using the value from this date field + 30 days as the formula.

Figure 8.10 – Adding a formula using the Expiration Date field

Tips

When you want to use a column that has spaces in its name, you must use brackets in the formula, otherwise, you will...

Summary

In this chapter, we have seen many ways to add value to our SharePoint portals and lists/libraries and to make sure that the data is being managed, viewed, and used in the best way.

Let's take a look at some of the great stuff that we have seen so far with a quick recap.

List view formatting is a great way to give your users a better data visualization experience for the entire list or library, showing your data with different layouts, but this is not what you are looking for because it changes the entire data visualization. You can only apply this visual customization to the fields that you want with field list formatting!

SharePoint portals are a great way to centralize information and collaboration among your company's staff, and you can increase the user experience by using standard web parts, a complete toolbox with different components to add more value to your pages.

Another important element is the fact that SharePoint is a document management...